On Saturday 13th July Vagn and I were going to leave Vannes. We loved that city, and didn’t really want to leave…It was so charming, we had a very nice place to stay in, and only met such kind and welcoming people there!
We had a long flying day in front of us, and got up early. It was already +25C, and the temperatures were going to be higher later that day. Breakfast in our favourite boulangerie “La huche a pain”, pain aux raisins and coffee, and we also bought some food for lunch.
A small part of that boulangerie on the photo below. Besides bread they also had juices, salads to go, sandwiches, quiches, and the most delicious cakes…
There was a large market in the city, with stalls full of fruits and veggies, fish and meat, all possible things that can be found in the area. The drawback for us was that the taxi couldn’t get close, and we had to both agree with the taxi driver where to meet, and to find our way – and that wasn’t easy!
Running through the streets of Vannes, I saw that beautiful wall and stopped to take a photo:
And – I lost Vagn… He ran further, and disappeared in that huge market… After some time we could finally locate each other, find our taxi and get to the Vannes airport.
We soon took off, and our destination for that day was Reims. It was a bit bumpy in the air, and we discussed how the turbulence would develop during the day. The town of Morannes by the river Sarthe on our way:
The first leg of our journey was from Vannes to Blois, about 160 nautical miles east:
Blois LFOQ was a nice unmanned airport. It has 6 runways (i.e. 12 in total), and a pilot needs to follow the well-defined rules for radio communication, take-offs, landings and taxiing. Self-service in the briefing room, free tea and coffee.
Vagn and I lost some time due to the strong headwind, and only had 15 minutes for a break in Blois. On take-off, we saw this wonderful roundabout with an aircraft in the middle:
We need to have the same in my home club in EKML! There is already a roundabout with flowers near our flying club – half of the task is solved; we only need an aircraft that could be placed there 🙂
The next leg was from Blois to Reims, again about 160 nautical miles:
We took off; there were those endless golden fields, that helped the nature to produce some excellent thermals that continuously threw our small ultralight aircraft up and down…
The Medieval Castle of Port-sur-Seine:
Besides the turbulence, headwind, and strong sunshine, the weather was nice.
In one place we had to be in holding for about 20 minutes. The fuel was calculated so that we would have enough for an extra hour. In the very last part of our flight there were large densely forested hills of up to 1000 feet. Vagn and I briefly discussed whether to go higher up or to do a deviation from our route so that we would have a gliding distance to a potential landing spot, if the engine would fail. We flew in 2000 feet where we found it was best in relation to the turbulence and headwind. We already lost 20 minutes, and knew we were a bit low on fuel. We were also running out of time – the tower in Reims was going to close down at 19:00. We decided to go higher up… The passing over those forests and hills went uneventful, and soon we saw the town of Mailly-Champagne on the other side:
We flew over the best grand cru area of the province of Champagne, and we didn’t know it at that time. We were just concerned about our fuel. We switched from the Seine info to the Reims info frequency, and the air trafiic controller asked us not to overfly any houses on landing. We did a number of zigzags to comply. Sillery village, just near the aerodrome:
On final to runway 07:
We landed at 18:45 and were welcomed to Reims by the air traffic controller. He recommended us to ask for an assistance from the restaurant located on the aerodrome, if we needed help to get taxi or other things after 19:00. We had around 6-8 litres of fuel left in the tanks which would be enough for the extra 30 minutes flying.
With Vagn, we agreed that he would refuel and take care of the aircraft, and I’d arrange hotel and taxi. After that we’d have dinner before going for Reims. For some strange reasons, my mobile phone didn’t have any network coverage. I went to the restaurant where I tried to connect a mobile internet device to my phone and to the internet, with no success.
And whilst I was standing there with all my mobile devices and cables, I was approached by a person from the restaurant’s staff. He asked me whether I wanted to order anything to drink. I explained that we had just landed, didn’t have any hotel booked and needed to clarify it first. The man asked me to leave immediately (!) because that restaurant was a place for eating and drinking, not booking hotels or doing anything else. He even asked guests in the restaurant whether they could translate it for me into English, so that I would get the exact meaning of his kind words.
I said merci and left. Luckily, there still were glider pilots in their hangars. I went to them and told them how I was treated in that restaurant. I think they got a shock when they heard the story. They helped me to find a hotel, and to order a taxi – of course, who wouldn’t do that?!
Vagn and I got to our hotel in Reims. It was late, we were tired, so we had dinner in the hotel. At 23:30 there were beautiful festive fireworks in the nearby park – the day after was the Bastille Day, a national day of France. The fireworks were spectacular, and lasted for about half an hour – we watched them from the hotel:
It was a bit ironic that I titled this blogpost as “Welcome to Reims!”, I definitely had in mind that miserable welcome in the restaurant of the Reims airport. Never before had I experienced being treated like that. But I choose to think of the warm welcome from the air traffic controller and the glider pilots, and I will be happy to meet them again.