Reims, France

Inspiration for new travel destinations often comes from browsing through magazines, swapping stories with expat friends or being tempted to buy cheap Eurostar tickets. The latter (often bought on impulse) then leads to a stint of research via the Rail Europe website for regional cities that offer connections with Paris or Brussels and have culturally unique attractions for us to explore. This is how Reims caught our attention. With history dating back to Roman Gaul; a UNESCO listed Cathedral and champagne houses close to the town center; it was a perfect city break destination for a weekend drinking the best bubbles in the world.

Travelling from London to Paris

Travelling to Reims involved a multi-stage transport process. The first leg of our journey involved an almost pre-sunrise minicab ride to London's St Pancras International train station. We caught a Eurostar train to Paris that departed not long after 7am. Signal issues resulted in delays crossing the Channel Tunnel and we were fairly late in our arrival at Paris Gare du Nord station. It was good to find out for future reference that if train delays had resulted in us missing connections from Paris, the Eurostar staff were on-hand to assist with appropriate 'correspondence' to get us on the next available train.

Breakfast at St Pancras

From Paris Gare du Nord, we walked a few blocks away to another train station, Gare de Est where we caught the TGV train to Reims. All of our train bookings for this trip were made in advance via online sites and this saved us money (train ticket prices skyrocket for on-the-day travel) and avoided the hassle of trying to find a machine that worked or accepted certain credit cards. Note that some European self service ticket machines do not accept AMEX or pre-paid (eg. Caxton) credit cards even when they are chip and pin compliant.

Halfway point - making it to Paris Est station

French Pastry

Feeling peckish for something to eat for lunch (time had skipped forward an hour since leaving London), we stopped off at a very popular bakery - Le Moulin a Pains around the corner from the station entrance where we picked up a travel snack - Quiche Lorraine. This version was everything you would expect from a quality piece of pastry - buttery, creamy filling and lots of bacon - outdoing our previous favourite quiches from the chain store - Pauls.

The delectable quiche Lorraine

Arriving in Reims

The train journey to Reims took just under an hour. Reims has a very elegant train station and Olie immediately checked in via Foursquare to claim another train badge. 

Front entrance of Gare Reims

The train station is located next to a park containing a range of spring flowers in bloom; as well as a war memorial. We found out later at the Reims Tourist Office that the Champagne Ardenne region contains a number of WWI (Western Front) and WWII battle-sites and special activities were being arranged for 2014 to commemorate the centenary of WWI.

Avenue of Honour leading to the War Memorial

Pretty flowers and statue in the park

Cherry blossoms

Grand Hotel De L'univers
Our hotel, Grand Hotel De L'univers was located close to a train station for the convenience of being able to drop our bags off and start exploring straight away. We usually select hotels that are based in the historic district or are close to transport connections. The staff at the hotel were very friendly, provided us with a tourist map and assisted with booking reservations at the Pommery and G.H Mumm Champagne Houses.

Basilique Saint-Remi
Our first Champagne House appointment was at Pommery and we somewhat underestimated how long the walk would be from our hotel to the other side of town. With Google Maps acting as our guide, we passed by the UNESCO listed Basilique Saint-Remi that was reconstructed after being devastated during WWI. A 360 degree multimedia tour of this site is available from the Reims Tourist Office website

Basilique Saint Remi 

View of the stained glass windows

Champagne Pommery
It was difficult to avoid being distracted by the other historic and beautiful buildings in Reims that we passed on our way to the Champagne Pommery site. We even came close to missing our appointment when we made it on time to the huge traffic roundabout that Google Maps had pinpointed our location to be; only to see the tour reception center being located distantly on the other side of a grand driveway. Providing some amusement for the nearby Reims tourist bus passengers, we raced frantically up the driveway and were at a state of breathlessness when we made it inside and handed over our reservation booking - definitely the way to work up the need for a drink.

The carpark and part of the grand driveway

The reception centre

Champagne Tour

Our tour package included a visit to the cellars (Caves Pommery) and two glasses of champagne each. The main character in the Pommery brand is Louise Pommery, who assumed control of the business upon her husband's death, a remarkable achievement for a woman in the 1860's. She was responsible for purchasing the property that contained the ancient limestone and chalk pits carved by Roman soldiers that were perfect for creating the temperature controlled environment for the storage and ageing of champagne.

Artwork in the Pommery reception centre

The different champagne bottle sizes

The cellar tour was available in English and was performed in a group of about 20 visitors, that included two young children who were slightly bored with all the explanations of the Pommery brand, history of the site and the champagne making process. The children decided to use the walkways as their playground, frustrating other visitors as the children's parents decided to ignore them and did nothing to stop them from disrupting the tour guide.

Entrance into the cellars

Hundreds of bottles that used to be turned by hand

One of the rooms containing bottles from different vintages

The old pulley system used for transporting the bottles

The different cellars are named after cities that Pommery
exports to, and to help the workers navigate the tunnels

First champagne session
After the cellar tour, we were very much looking forward to tasting the product. Two champagne bars are set up on either side of the reception centre. There is also a small shop where bottles can be purchased for immediate consumption or onward shipping to another country.

With our package, we were able to sample four different types of champagne including a Brut (the most popular type of champagne), a Rose, a Vintage and a special edition that contained juice from only Chardonnay (white) grapes (called "blanc de blancs").

Our four different types of champagne

Champagne Houses

Walking around Reims, we spotted the grand Champagne Houses of other well known brands, as displayed in the pictures below. There are many more Champagne Houses in the region, including along the famous L'Avenue de Champagne (The Champagne Avenue) located in Epernay including Moët et Chandon, Mercier and De Castellane.

Charles de Cazanove

Krug Champagne

Louis Roederer (Cristal brand)

Champagne Jacquart

Demoiselle Champagne

Sightseeing around Reims

During WWI, the entire town of Reims was almost completely flattened as a result of being shelled for four years. However, the city has been rebuilt to reflect a mixture of styles, making it an interesting place for walking around and looking at building architecture.

Hotel de Ville (Town Hall)

Grand Theatre (Art Deco style)

Palais de Justice

Abbey of St Remi

Canal de l'Aisne

Ruins of an old church

Hotel Picnic Dinner

After a long day walking, we stopped by the central area of Reims near the Place du Parvis. This area is where the Cathedral, Palais du Tau and Tourist Office are located. Seeking out a bottle of champagne that we could drink in the hotel, we visited Les Delices Champenoises - a tourist shop that stocked many different varieties and assisted us in selecting a brand - Vilmart and Cie that was not extensively known outside of France and offered good value for money. We then realised we would need glasses and the shop provided a couple for free; and gave us directions to the nearest supermarket, Monoprix near the Place du Forum where we could buy supplies for a picnic dinner.

The Gallo-Roman ruins at Place du Forum

At the supermarket, we picked up a range of groceries including picked octopus, smoked salmon, baguette, foie gras (Olie's favourite), camembert cheese, plastic forks and in addition we had a packet of jamon brought along from our Barcelona trip the week before.

Our picnic dinner

Vilmart and Cie Champagne

Mars Gate (Porte de Mars)

Near the train station, the Mars Gate is a Roman triumphal arch that dates back to the third century AD, and was the widest arch in the Roman world. It was used as a city gate until the Renaissance period but now sits in the middle of a park.

Mars Gate

G.H. Mumm Tour

On the Sunday, we had an early morning appointment at G.H. Mumm for a cellar tour and second round of champagne taste testing. The House was located not far from our hotel, one side of the property contained the grand mansion whilst the tour was conducted on the factory side.

G.H Mumm reception centre

The brand

Special commission with an artist

The tour was more intimate than the previous day as there was only us and one other couple from Amsterdam. Our guide took us to a little cinema where we watched a short film on the history of the brand. We then descended stairs to visit the cellars, passing by the concrete vats that are used to hold the grape juice.

Vats lining the walkway

Champagne process
We found the tour to be more informative that the one at Pommery. One room had models of the three types of grapes that are used to make champagne - Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. Another room had props that explained the angle that the bottles are positioned at during the process; and the 'legal' time that champagne must be aged for versus the longer timeframe that G.H. Mumm chooses to adopt.

The room containing a bottle from each vintage

Second Champagne session

After the tour, we headed for the tasting room where we sampled across two different products - the Vintage and Brut. We also played the wine aroma game, similar to the one we had played in Bordeaux. We were given small bottles of perfumes and had to guess what the aroma was - usually a flower, fruit or spice.

The tasting rooms and shop

Drinking after playing the aroma game

Olie testing out his nose

The G.H. Mumm range

Reims Cathedral (Notre-Dame de Reims)

Reims Cathedral was the venue for the coronation of the Kings of France and was built on the site of the basilica where Clovis (first king of France) was baptized by Saint Remi in AD496.

Model of the cathedral

The paving stone the commemorates the baptism of Clovis

The Cathedral contains a stunning variety of stained glass windows, stone gargoyles and contains a statue of the French heroine Joan of Arc.

Golden eagle inside Reims Cathedral

One of the gargoyles

Statues decorating the outside of the Cathedral

Au Bureau Restaurant - Coffee with a view

In any European city popular with tourists, the area closest to the star attraction (like a UNESCO listed cathedral or castle) will always have the priciest cup of coffee. Perhaps there is a service charge for admiring the view. We once paid 24 euro for the most expensive two glasses of beer in the shadow of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The same price was also paid for a very fluffy omelette on Mont St Michel. But despite knowing the pricing pitfalls, we still ventured into Au Bureau restaurant next to Reims Cathedral and parted with 10 euro for two small coffees.

Reims Cathedral with scaffolding

Palais du Tau (Bishops Palace)

UNESCO sign on Reims Cathedral

Coffee with a markup for the view

Jardins Luxembourg

Early afternoon, it was time to return back to Paris and enjoy yet another walk around the restaurant district of the Latin Quarter and St Michel. This included one more attempt (this time successful) at visiting the Jardins Luxembourg - a public park that was the referenced in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables as the place where character Marius Pontmercy meets Cosette. On previous Paris trips, the park had been either closed or we were deterred by bad weather from visiting. This time the sunny weather had drawn out the locals to sunbathe on deckchairs. It was a Sunday relaxation session, framed by garden beds of pretty Spring flowers and children playing with boats in the pond.

We made it - Jardins Luxembourg

Luxembourg Palace

Endless field of daffodils

One of the many statues of French queens and saints

Boats on the pond

Using a stick to push the boats

And no trip to Paris could be complete without stopping off and eating Mei's favourite meal - steak tartare with a side of garlic butter snails at La Luge right next door to the St Michel RER station where we could take the train back to Gare du Nord and onward back to London.

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