This year's trip was to Champagne region of France, centred for four days around Rheims.  The drive there from Lille formed the regular treasure hunt.  I'd thought no more of Lille than that it was a railway junction on the Eurostar route from Waterloo to Paris and Brussels.  But it turns out to have a beautiful and lively reconstructed centre. 

Rheims is the centre of the Champagne region, with many of the major champagne houses having their headquarters here.  It has a celebrated cathedral (where the sign over the enormous entrance says, if my translation is correct, that it was converted from secular use in the twelfth century). 

It has a Jaguar connection, since Rheims racetrack was the scene of many F1 and saloon car races over the years.   Sadly, it's been abandoned for many years, though the track exists as public roads, and the complex of pit buildings and stands remain in stark concrete as a poignant reminder of the excitement there must have been, especially with a very long downhill straight through the pits. 

The pictures in the colour supplement section may show the last time there's any organized motoring event there before the circuit is finally destroyed: a new road is planned to cut across the end of the pit straight just next to the xxx restaurant.  It seems sort of typical of the French attitude to this piece of Rheims; in the town we found a building which is now a medical centre, but clearly used to be the headquarters of the Automobile Club de Reims.  The wall by the entrance to the car park had the list of champions at Reims from 1957 to 1969 when; the middle section had been painted over to make way for a board listing the doctors' names. 

Needless to say, most drivers took the opportunity to do a few laps over the circuit, though at safe and legal speeds!  Before that, though, we had the parade of Jaguar cars, treasure hunt prize giving, and the "spirit of the tour" award.  For all this, the gendarmes had closed the road, so apart from a French interloper selling car spares (!) we had a solid wall of Jaguars lining the pits. 

Rheims has a small automobile museum; according to the Michelin guide, it has several Hispanio Suiza cars, but we couldn't find any; there were a few Jaguars (an american XJ6 with hideous chrome trim round the wheel arches (which would at least hide the rust on ours!)) and some tired E-types, and a Rosengart, an Austin Seven made under license.  The Rosengart provides another link with Jaguars, as the first car made by William Lyons was the Austin Swallow, a coach built rebodied Austin Seven chassis.  That in turn provides a link to the Entente Cordiale tour, as the "Spirit of the Tour" trophy was won by John Gallon in his beautiful Austin Swallow. 

The museum also had some futuristic cars designed by Jean-Pierre Wimille.  The cars anticipated the Maclaren F1 by many years, by having three seats, with the driver in the middle!  Wimille was a racing driver commemorated on the wall at the back of the grandstand at the Rheims circuit, along with Raymond Sommer and Robert Benoist, all Grand Prix winners at Rheims.

Other high spots included a tour of Moet et Chandon's cellars, a trip to Troyes, and optional dinners at Moet et Chandon and on a boat trip.