Cognac - Day 2

We got up rather early to see if there was a free spot at the aire de camping and were rewarded, 3 of the 4 campers had left. I chose the spot that is closest to the river La Charente. This free parking space for campers has free water, a place to empty your toilet, bathrooms, a garbage area and most importantly free electricity (we can run our fridge for free now). One of the first things I did was continue catching up on the blog writing, I am now only 3 weeks behind, much better than the previous 1+ month. We ventured into town without knowing where anything was and had a pleasant time doing so. We found an information point that had an Information centre marked on it, so off we went. This center turned out to be the history center for the town of Cognac. It was free to visit so we decided to stick around the 20 minutes or so it took to see everything. Julie came across some extremely nice candles in the gift shop and was deterred in buying them because of transportation issues (no place to store them). We then made our way to the Tourist information center after we were provided with a small town map at the history centre for Cognac. We both wanted to take a tour of one or more of the cognac distilleries here in Cognac and the tourist office said that we could find an English tour at the Hennessey distillery. So off we went to the Hennessey building. The tour ran us 9 euros each, was about 1 hour long and we had the chance to taste a new and an old cognac. The best part of the tour was the aging cellar, where they have barrels of cognac aging, it basically smelt like wine. About 2%, or around 12,000 L evaporate in these cellars per year and they call it “The Angels Share”. The tour guide made a joke, saying “you can imagine what state they are in up there”. Julie and I found it amazing how much work and how much product they go through just to get one bottle. We made our way back to the visitor building for the tasting. Julie and I have determined that we are not old enough yet to appreciate cognac. Other distilleries on the list that I would like to visit would be Remy Martin and Courvoisier, but Remy Martin is located just outside of the town centre and Courvoisier is located in a different town altogether, but still in the Cognac region. It being Halloween and all, I did my best to bring Halloween to Julie in a country that is just starting warm to the idea. We did see some kids dressed up though. We watched Hocus Pocus and some of the Simpsons Tree House of Horrors episodes. While we were at Anna’s place in Germany we read that France is the country that is embracing Halloween the most at the moment and that McDonalds is the best place to go on Halloween night. So that is where we went for something to eat. However, they only had a glass cabinet with Halloween decorations in it. To make up for it though, we learnt that all McDonalds in France provide free internet access. So we also loaded a Supernatural episode before making our way back to the van. Julie brought her vampire teeth with her (in the hopes of getting to do something for Halloween) and put them on during Hocus Pocus to feel more Halloweeny. I told her that she would just have to do a huge party when we are back in Canada next year and that I would let her start setting up for it in September. It was a great day and the weather has been great so far. Tomorrow is a national holiday for France, All Saints Day, so we will probably just be hanging out and possibly going back to McDonalds to finish uploading the updates to the blog. After that, it’s off to La Rochelle, the white city.