The best city hikes and walks around Épernay

The Avenue de Champagne in Épernay is a prestigious 1.6-kilometer-long avenue known as the "richest avenue in the world" for its millions of bottles of champagne in underground cellars. Along the avenue are famous champagne houses, historic villas, gardens, and two listed monuments: the City Hall and Château Perrier. The avenue is the city's main tourist attraction and the scene of events such as the "Soirée Blanche" and "Habits de Lumière." Since 2015, the avenue has been part of the Champagne UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Perrier-Jouët is a champagne house founded in 1811 by Pierre-Nicholas-Marie Perrier. The company is located in Épernay and has a house style characteristic of the city. Épernay is located near the Côte des Blancs, a region primarily planted with Chardonnay, and therefore uses a lot of Chardonnay in its champagnes. Source: Wikipedia

Some of the buildings are monumental and an expression of capital - but even the small winemakers have very good champagnes to offer that are in no way inferior to the big houses!

It's an island of about 4,500 square meters floating where the Marne River separates Épernay and Magenta, accessible only by boat or swimming. A stone's throw from the Épernay campsite and the Magenta landfill, this bean-shaped piece of land officially became the Ilocratie de la Tête à l’âne in 2018. A micronation with a constitution, a flag, an anthem, a motto ("Family, Friends, Nature"), a rallying cry (a donkey doing a "hi-haw," of course!), and even a government (the Ciboulot) and ministers. These are the owners of the place, a somewhat eccentric family who describe themselves in their bylaws as "a friendly and welcoming group of gentle, enlightened dreamers."

The beginning of the most famous street in the entire Champagne region, with a selection of renowned champagne houses on either side of the avenue, each more chic - or more pompous - than the last.

The champagne house owns several beautiful Art Nouveau buildings on Avenue de Champagne. The building with the characteristic 66-meter-high tower, which is a symbol of Epernay, is also part of the Castellane champagne house. The main building also houses a champagne museum. (c) https://www.champagneshop.nl/champagnehuis-castellane#:~:text=Het%20champagnehuis%20bezit%20een%20aantal,is%20ook%20een%20champagnemuseum%20gevestigd.

In 2011[9], the idea for the current Museum of Champagne and Regional Archaeology was born. The project was approved by the French Ministry of Culture in 2014, and in 2016 the renovation work was entrusted to the architectural firm Frenak + Jullien. Work began in 2018, under the supervision of the chief architect of historical monuments Lionel Dubois. Château Perrier has now been restored and contains one of the most important archaeological exhibits in France, with some 80,000 regional artefacts (dating from the Paleolithic to the Early Middle Period) and 4,000 artefacts relating to the history of Champagne wine (since 1960).[10]

The Château Perrier, at number 13, was built from 1852 to 1857[9] by the architect Pierre-Eugène Cordier, in an eclectic Louis XIII style. In 1854[10], the couple Pierre-Nicolas Perrier, a cork manufacturer, and Adèle Jouët (the founders of the Perrier-Jouët champagne house), who had married in 1811, commissioned the construction of this castle. The four facades are inspired by the architecture of the French Renaissance, to the Parisian image of the Palais du Luxembourg, the Palais des Tuileries or the Lescot of the Louvre. The facades are a play of colours with materials such as brick, natural stone, slate and glass.