On our way to the second corner, we drove to Bergues, the Most Beautiful Village that also turned out to be the filming location of Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis. We were lucky in that it was Monday, which happened to be market day amd is always accompanied by a “concert” of church bells. We climbed to the top of the belfry and listened to most of it there. Wonderful.

Next we drove to Bray-Dunes, parked the car, and carried our picnic supplies nearly 2 kilometers to what we assumed was the border with Belgium. Then we had to walk another kilometer down to the water in order to take our pictures at the real corner. It’s kind of hard to find the exact spot, as there are no signs, and my GPS says we haven’t yet arrived at the neighboring country even as my cell phone company sends me an SMS with that country’s calling rates. But I reckon we got pretty close.

Here’s our map from the first corner to the second. Once again, pink indicates our route as well as towns we actually walked around and/or ate in. Blue highlights where we stayed. You can click the map to see a much bigger version, but I recommend either high-speed internet or patience, as it is 2.5 MB.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon

Heading north from champagne country, we visited the tiny town of Parfondeval. It’s officially a Most Beautiful Village, but it’s very tiny and there’s no welcome center with tourist info, so we were somewhat underwhelmed. We drove a bit further into the countryside and bought some apple juice and cider before moving on.

In Fourmies, officially a Most Beautiful Detour, we had a picnic at the lake. We would have rented a paddleboat but the rental company was closed.

Another Most Beautiful Detour, St-Amand-les-Eaux was really lovely, but both of the churches were under renovation and therefore closed, so we soon continued on our way.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon

Upon leaving Metz, we decided that, instead of going southwest toward our next stop, we would go north, and even back east a bit, to visit the recently restored Château de Malbrouck. I particularly enjoyed the workshops and explanations of how the restoration was done, and as an added bonus, throughout the château and grounds were works by the French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (no photos allowed).

We also, stupidly, decided to continue west along the border and then zip up north to the border town of Givet. It was very cute and I’d love to spend a few days there; unfortunately, we still had several hours to drive to our lodging for the night, in Épernay. So we spent most of the day driving and arrived exhausted and cranky.

But we were able to recover the next day, which was pretty much bliss: we had a picnic in Epernay and then did a terrific champagne dégustation during which we shared most of a bottle with the propriétaire while trading travel stories for an hour. We would have stayed longer, but we had to run because we’d reserved places on the canal cruise. That was lovely, and then we spent the evening chatting with 2 Swedish couples in our chambre d’hôtes.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon

On Tuesday, 20 July, we visited the first corner of the Hexagon. We first drove to the lovely town of Wissembourg. The church has a beautiful though unfinished cloister, and just in front is a lovely, flowery park. We continued on to Cleebourg, where we bought a bottle of crémant with which to toast our visit to the first corner. It was a gorgeous day, and when we got to the corner we were stunned to see a local fisherman sitting right there, who spoke neither French nor English. Since we couldn’t explain why we were at that exact spot, I’m sure he though we were completely insane with our crémant and camera.

Here’s our map up until we reached the first corner. Pink indicates our route as well as towns we actually walked around and/or ate in. Blue highlights where we stayed. You can click the map to see a much bigger version, but I recommend either high-speed internet or patience, as it is 2.5 MB.

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About 6 corners of the Hexagon