July 27 – Day Trip to Reims (Champagne country)

Today we took our second day trip to the city of Reims in the heart of Champagne country, yet only a 45 minute train trip from Paris. The train moves so fast that it is hard to take it all in, it would be great to explore the countryside by car someday. However, the town itself was nice to explore as well.

We started with a tour of the Mumm champagne house. The tour included walking a section of the underground caves which house 25 million bottles of champagne for them in over 25 kilometers of tunnels. The tunnels were carved out centuries ago by this vintner, as well as the other (the tunnels kriss-cross under the whole town). Of course, the highlight of the tour was the samples at the end!

We had a great lunch at a local café, including lamb stew, steak tartare, and Carolyn’s first French hamburger, served sans bun. The ground beef tasted just like steak!

In the afternoon we toured the historic Reims cathedral, constructed over the 13th and 14th centuries. Every French king, going back to Clovis around 500 AD. The cathedral is quite large, as the medieval archetects were able to build even higher after gaining more insights and knowledge from building Notre Dame in Paris.

A highlight of a this cathedral is the windows, some which have survived since original construction up through a recent installation of windows designed by Chagall in the 1970s. These windows replaced some that were lost during WW2.