It is a “fortified” city captured by the Germans in World War I and which was liberated by NZ soldiers on 4 November 1918 ending 4 years of occupation.
At the time there was a garrison of 1000 German soldiers in the city and they were ordered to withstand any attack. The Germans were given three opportunities to surrender and after the third refusal the Kiwis moved on the city gaining entry by climbing a ladder at the place where a monument to them now stands. Man after man climbed the ladder and after a street fight the Germans surrendered, the residents grateful that the town suffered no significant damage in the liberation.
As a consequence Le Quesnoy remains grateful to NZ and there are numerous reflections of that in the town.
An example of the fortification
The monument to the NZers where they scaled the wall
Just outside the town is s very well maintained cemetery containing among others 50 graves of our men...
..one of whom bore the surname of Sherry’s family and whether he is related will be determined once we get home.
With some pride we “signed” the visitors book before returning back to Vandeuil 
Kms driven today; 405
The centre also included other “mega” stores covering the whole range so it was a one stop environment albeit we did not notice a food hypermarket.
The village we went to for dinner last night, Hermonville, also had a nice building which housed the Mairie. This is, or seems to be, a very prestigious position in a French community as we are told nothing happens without the express permission of the Mairie (Mayor)
For such a small village (population 1480 in 2016) the restaurant provided fine dining and was a popular establishment given how busy it was. Tonight we have a booking for dinner at a restaurant in another village Coulonges-Cohan (pop. 436 in 2016) around 18 kms away.
Reims is dominated by the Cathedral (Notre-Dame De Reims) which was built in the French Gothic style in the years 1211-1275 and was used for the coronations of numerous Kings of France the first being Louis VII Le Bon in 1223. It is a massive structure covering 71,600sq ft with 2 towers 81m high, in the south tower there are two bells one of which weighs more than 10,000 kilograms, and the cathedral receives about one million visitors annually.
Tonight we go to another village - Hermonville - around 10kms away to try a restaurant there. What we have found is that if you don’t reserve a table particularly in smaller villages you are likely to arrive and have to move on. Even in Dijon, a city blessed with 100s of restaurants we saw 10s of couples turned away from restaurants we were in as they hadn’t made a booking and there didn’t seem to be a second sitting time available - one restaurant that we went to twice, Le Bouchon du Palais, was only open from 7pm to 9pm.
Arrived at Vandeuil around 2.30 and checked into our accommodation which is in a delightful village surrounded by vineyards - there are at least 3 champagne houses in the village and our hosts run one of them.
After a couple of hours and a reviver at Starbucks it was back on the tram to the city - what a pity that Auckland doesn’t have such a system as they are very efficient and relaxing to ride on and at €1.70 a ticket good for an hours travel, even on a different tram and/or bus, very inexpensive.
If we were to emigrate to France then Dijon is certainly a city that would be high on our list - we doubt whether we have seen a more livable city.
As we stopped at the various stations en route it brought home to us the number of “dead” and graffitied train carriages there must be sitting in sidings all around the world - it would make train travel more eye appealing if the companies disposed of them at the knackers yard at the end of their useful life.
Besançon was the same but different - there were some very nice buildings, the central area was surrounded by water, there was a tram system throughout the town and as it was Monday many of the shops were shut!
There was even a NZ tattooist in town or someone who was using a marketing ploy - the examples of his work in the parlour certainly did not cry out Maori
A. manufacturing watchmakers window display made us stop and window shop for quite sometime as the feature clocks he makes were “mind blowing” and at a cost of around €9000 wallet popping as well 
Mid afternoon it was back to the station and on another train this time to Dole another town typical of this area with tidy pedestrian walkways and a main street with well kept picturesque buildings but like many it was quite slumbering on a Monday.
Another enjoyable day.
Between museum visits we walked to the railway station to purchase tickets for a day trip tomorrow and saw numerous Dijonnais including families taking part in Velotour which appeared to be a cycle ride through the streets of Dijon - the organized event was well patronised as we had seen many groups cycling throughout the morning.
On the way to the second museum we passed another bookstore filled with old books and while one could describe it as junky in fact it was that which made it worth stopping and admiring...
...something else which made us stop were the “musicians” in the Beaux Arts courtyard entertaining the crowd utilizing the old fashion organ grinder type instrument 
The tune is determined by what notes are feed into the machine off the paper “trail” which can be seen on both sides of the unit in the above
and which look like this.
It was a very varied collection and covered “art” from around 300BC through to the 19th century with emphasis on both religious works and the Dukes of Burgundy.