Reims (Champagne district)

8th & 9th April 2009

We happily said goodbye to our disgusting hotel in Caen, for the 2.5 hours trip back to Paris (again another chance to read more Twilight) and a quick metro trip took us from St Lazare over to Paris Est to catch the high speed train to Reims. Once at Est we used another ticketing machine to buy our tickets. We knew the journey was about 40 minutes on the fast train, so wasn't expecting the tickets to cost that much. 2 return tickets = 134 Euros. I almost fell over. That's what we paid for our flights from London to Paris. Wow. We grabbed a quick lunch at the train station before jumping on the train. We had allocated seats for this trip, and finding them was kind of annoying. The numbering system was silly. We found our seats and settled in. Although the distance from Paris to Caen was comparable to Reims, the journey took half the time. The train did go fairly quickly, but I spent the time finishing off New Moon.

We arrived in Reims and stepped out of the station into a construction zone. They are putting in a tram system into the town and all the work was happening in front of the station. We pulled out the google directions I had printed off to find the hotel.

On arrival at the hotel a lovely receptionist told us that they had none of the rooms we booked available and they had to bump us up to a deluxe suite. We didn't say no to that after what we'd stayed in the previous 4 nights. The room was awesome. It was a fully contained unit, with a kitchen, clean bathroom, and a big executive desk with leather chair, it was awesome. We dropped bags and headed off into town.

It was on this walk that I started a new game with Dan. In European Union countries, cars have their countries letter on the number plate (So in England they all have 'GB', in France they all have an 'F'). The game was the first person to spot a non F number plate. Anyway, we arrived in town and followed the signs to the tourist information office. We enquired about doing champagne cellar tours and tastings and the nice lady booked us in for one at 11am the next morning. But I was thirsty then, and she pointed us in the right direction of a champagne house that does tours with appointments not necessary. Wahoo! We took the half hour walk, which passed the university and the Planeterium, and a big church or basilica or something, and eventually found Taittinger Champagne house. The next English tour was only 15 minutes off, so we waited in the lovely grounds.

Before they let you drink any of their champagnes they make you go on a tour of the cellars, and they tell you how champagne is made. The cellars at Taittinger were very old, most of it built in the 13th century by Augustine Monks. The cellars were below the cathedral, and there were many little tunnels that would've let straight up to the church. There were so many bottles of fermenting champagne down there, and the different sizes of the bottles were cool. We were then led into the oldest part of their cellars. They dated back to Gallo Roman times, about the 4th century, when they were used to mine for chalk to make bricks and stuff. Finally the tour ended and we would finally be rewarded for the 80 odd steps we had to climb to get out of the cellar. We were given one glass of their cheapest champagne. It was nice, but I wasn't going to pay 40 Euro's for a bottle of it. I could've sat and drank a few more free glasses of it though, but they were keen to move us on.

From here we took the hike back into town to find some dinner. The main street had so many choices of nice bars and cafes for dinner. I am also impressed when they pull out English menus for us. Makes choosing so much more easy. I had the 'Special big boy burger'. It was yum. We had planned to go and see Milk at the cinema, but I was all too sleepy, so it was off to bed.

We had a bit of a sleep in the next morning, but we were booked into the next champagne tour at 11am. We set off for the little stroll to G.H. Mumm champagne house. On the way we passed by a building which used to be General Eisenhower's headquarters, which was where the document ending WWII was signed by the Germans.

G.H. Mumm do everything at this site (The one we went to yesterday had a bigger bottling plant off site), they held 25 million bottles of champagne in their cellars (I'd hate to think what damage Janet could do to that if left alone down there?!?!?) G.H. Mumm are a main sponsor the F1's. Anytime you see them up on the podium, they are spraying each other with Mumm champagne. It has the big red sash on the label. This cave/cellar tour, was mostly similar to the one yesterday. Just a lot of the procedures and stuff. Blah blah, we're only interested in the tastings. We paid a bit extra today to try 2 champagnes. We had a special vintage one, and just the regular brut reserve. For the exorbitant price different, it all tasted much of a muchness to me! So we stumbled out just before midday with a few glasses under our belts (with no breakfast either) and I decided that I wanted some lunch. Let the starchiness of some pasta dry me up a little.

From lunch we wandered through the streets of Reims. It is quite a large city, with some decent shops, but we didn't venture into any of them. We made our way up to the cathedral. Very large and very impressive. We walked in through it and found and commented on the size of the large organ in the side of the church. In which Dan pretended to be Todd from Scrubs "No I've got a big organ". Comedy is not his strong point! Something to do with Joan of Arc happened here, but we're not sure what. All the signs were in French. Also, this cathedral used to be where all the French Kings were coroneted.

It was now mid afternoon and time for a rest break. We headed back to the hotel a few hours, before heading back out for an early tea. It was again back to the hotel to pack up and to get ready before taking on Paris tomorrow.

I thought I'd tack this on the end of this blog, and keep all the Reims stuff together.

We had to check out of the Apartotel at 10am, but the train back wasn't until 1, so we left our bags at the hotel and just went for breakfast and another walk around the city. We found a café and settled for a ham and cheese baguette. This one wasn't very nice as they used yucky uncooked ham. The cheese and bread were still good. We explored more of the city and the beautiful parks, and then headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and head back to the construction zone of the train station for the high speed train back to Paris.