Camping goes with a fizz

The temptation to meander Sideways-style through the 70-odd Champagne cellars clustered between there and Epernay, only 30 kilometres to the south, must be overwhelming, and passport control at the tiny Reims airport must be resigned to seeing us Brits stagger back a week later, fizzed out and flat broke.

But there's more to life than Champagne (did I really write that?) and if you can get beyond the bubbles you'll find a vast rural area, the agricultural heartland of France, seemingly untouched by Kensington property developers, with roads empty of Chelsea parking permit-badged 4x4s - in short, a France with its charm and innocence intact.

I had only a few days to explore an area the size of Wales, and in this land of the farmer and the forester it was only appropriate I should remain close to nature, and was booked to stay at campsites along the length of my 700 kilometre tour.

A couple of hours south of Reims, and I found myself in the idyllic town of Langres, perched high on a hilltop behind its mediaeval ramparts, gazing down on the woodlands and lakes of the Haute-Marne. On a clear day, you can see the Alps.

Although it was the Easter holiday, and the town was basking in summer temperatures under a clear blue sky, the narrow mediaeval alleyways and streets were empty. In sleepy squares, a few locals sipped coffee in the sunshine outside pretty cafes. This was tourist brochure France, without the tourists.

The fortress town still boasts a Roman archway in its walls. Later, it was a stronghold of religious orders before the Revolution, when the state seized its numerous churches and monastic buildings and sold them off as stables and theatres.

Yves Chevalier, the proprietor of the Hotel du Cheval Blanc, once itself a priory and church, showed me some of his chic bedrooms, with vaulted ceilings and bare 13th-century stone walls.

Tempted though I was by the comforts of town, from the towers of the Cathedrale Saint-Mammes I had glimpsed the picturesque Lac de la Liez, and the site of what was to be my first experience of Le Camping.

Now, forget any notions of Nuts In May, cowpats and cold outdoor showers. The Camping-Village du Lac de la Liez boasts indoor and outdoor heated swimming pools, jacuzzi and sauna and a smart restaurant. I was booked into a two-bedroomed chalet (or lodge holiday home to the cognoscenti), with a well-equipped kitchen and spacious bathroom and more space than the average five-star hotel suite.

With chalet prices starting at 39 euros a night (a pitch for a tent, caravan or camping van is about five euros), and a sumptuous three-course meal at the lakeside Auberge des Voiliers for 20 euros, this was cheap and more than cheerful. The view of the lake from the chalet's veranda was worth the bill alone.

The area, with its network of rivers, lakes and canals and gently rolling wooded hills, is perfect for cycling, walking and boating, but it was back on the road for me as I headed north for the largest man-made lake in Europe, the Lac du Der-Chantenoq.

Where Langres was timeless and languid, the banks of this inland sea were bustling with holiday crowds.

Where England's lakes are home to a few dinghys and rowing boats, the Lac du Der bristles with gleaming white yachts and throbs with the roar of jetskis. This was more Cannes than Coniston, but the lake is large enough (80 kilometres circumference) to accommodate less frenetic activity. Created in the 1970s to help regulate the flow of the Seine through Paris, which had in the past suffered from spring floods and summer stagnation, the lake drains to half its size in the winter, leaving lagoons and wetlands that are home to more than 270 species of birds, and 70,000 cranes during the November migrations.

The myriad half-timbered cottages and barns in the surrounding villages are not quaint relics of ye olden days, but a practical necessity in an area where clay and wood were plentiful and stone an expensive scarcity.

Even the churches are half-timbered. The odd church that sports masonry walls owes its appearance to the snobbery of parishioners and 17th-century stone cladding.

I was spending the night at Les Sources du Lac, a campsite set among trees on the banks of a quiet corner of the lake, with its own private beach and direct access to the cycle paths and bridleways of the neighbouring forests.

I was travelling light, and the site had been asked to provide bedlinen for me, but I was unprepared for what was awaiting me on the double bed in my cosy chalet.

The small plastic package on the mattress beside the folded blankets and pillows contained two small pillowcases and two sheets made from some sort of polystyrene, for all the world the bastard offspring of a J-cloth and a roll of clingfilm. Disposable bedlinen.

I unfolded the first sheet to a crackle of static electricity. It floated and writhed across the mattress as I struggled to tuck it securely into place. My hair standing on end, I unfolded the second sheet. A fitted undersheet.

Off came the first sheet, shrinking itself into an unmanageable ball, and I began the whole process again.

Surprisingly, I slept well. The sheets were more comfortable than I imagined, although I did wake up with an Afro and a 500-volt handshake.

After a surreal breakfast - the poor girl at the campsite, her first day on the job, thought to impress with an English breakfast: boiled egg, hot milk, salami, dutch cheese and marmalade - and I was on the road again, this time to the far north of the region, and the forests of Ardennes.

Along the road through the Argonne region you are quickly made aware that the history of this area has been a bloody one. As you head across the wide plains towards Vouziers, you pass close to the First World War battle site of Verdun, which claimed a million French and German casualties, and dotted here and there along the roadside are poignantly discreet cemeteries, packed with row upon row of plain wooden crosses.

The site I was staying at was well off the beaten track, in the small village of Buzancy.

'Turn left at the statue of Jeanne d'Arc and follow the track' were the instructions.

Camping La Samaritaine was a delight, secluded, beside a large swimming lake with beach and barbecues, and my chalet a substantial wooden structure with room to sleep six. And no disposable sheets.

The owner, Thierry Boccart, had offered to introduce some of the locals, and so I found myself at the home of schoolteacher Jacques Caron, who happens to run his own honey farm as a sideline.

After donning beekeeping suits and masks, we were taken for an up close and personal visit to some of his hives. We were able to identify the queen bee by a marking on her back, put there at birth, and colour-coded to tell Jacques when her two years of peak fertility were up, and it was time for her to be replaced. The life of a honey bee is short and brutal.

After joining Jacques and his wife for a marvellous lunch dominated by honey-based dishes and authentic marital bickering from their kitchen (she'd forgotten to bake the bread), it was off to join two wildlife conservation students, Julien and Estelle, at Le Centre de Recherche et de Formation en Eco-thologie, for a 4x4 safari into the depths of the Ardennes Forest itself.

Bouncing along the rough tracks, we found ourselves stopping every few minutes for enthralling glimpses of red deer, roe deer, fallow deer, fox, ibex, and amazingly and fleetingly, wild boar. Definitely the highlight of my trip.

That evening, the proprietress of the Hotel Le Saumon in Buzancy (we could tell she was Dutch by her perfect, accent-free English) finally broke out the Champagne, and I was able to celebrate the end of my whistlestop tour of the hidden treasures of this undiscovered region in appropriate fashion.

The next morning it was back to Reims, to Luton, to grey skies and the M25.

I resolved to dig out my tent from the attic and pencil in an early date for a return visit - and I must remember to pack bedlinen.

Philip flew Air Turquoise (www.airturquoise.com) and was a guest of Champagne-Ardenne Regional Tourist Board (www.tourisme-champagne- ardenne.com)