Nicest towns in Champagne

Brad - In addition to Troyes, I can recommend the towns of Châlons-en-Champagne, Dormans, and Saint - Dizier to tour during your stay in Champagne.

Thanks, I'll look them up.

You are welcome Brad, the town of Dormans France is near Épernay. Épernay is worth a visit also.

Troyes is definitely worth spending time in.

We'd love to get to somewhere in Champagne while visiting Provence in the fall. Is there an easy direct train to one of these cities from Aix/Avignon?

Near Troyes is the small town of Brienne-le-Chateau, if you want to see the Napoleon Museum, refurbished and expanded in the last few years. The town is so small that no train stop is there and its identity is tied up with Napoleon.

Interesting, I've been to the Army Museum in Paris a couple of times. I was surprised how Napoleon is venerated in France. I'd have guessed he'd be remembered negatively because of his war ravaged reign. I'll check it out.

"venerated," as he should be.

A couple of years ago the city of Arras held a year long Napoleonic exhibit, very extensive; a pity that I was not aware of it when I was in Europe that summer.

Brienne is where Napoleon went to miltary school. That building had been turned into a Napoleon museum, which in the last few years was refurbished and expanded with more Napoleonic realia. Lots and lots of aspects of Napoleon's reign as First Consul and Emperor of the French are part and parcel of present day French life and society.

Exactly the same day of the 200 year commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo I was in the museum and visited Napoleon’s tomb too. There was nothing there that even good be linked to this historical event besides a few words in leaflets in the museums shop.

I never have spoken a Frenchman how he or she sees Napoleon but anyway he kick-started an important chain of events in European history. In many countries occupied under his rule legislation and state structure was changed and became more in line with the principals of Enlightenment. Meaning creating room for everybody for living at a more equal basis (even there was a very long way to go further in history, actually till today) and resulted for instance in the abolition of servitude later in the 19th century. Servitude was one of the aspects for maintaining the dominant position of nobility and they were scared to death losing it. Also with the French Revolution in mind, but also remaining deaf in general for changes for the benifit of others causing so much trouble later.

If defeating Napoleon was only about getting hegemony in Europe you can think what are the French complaining about, but from the perspective that he played such an influencial role in for instance the decline of nobility further across Europe I can understand that some still have positive ideas about him. Ofcourse he was not a nice man, but he was not the only one, his opponent colleagues were to my idea not so much better in that respect.

"venerated" and not to deny is that France remains a proud nation.