Welcome to Reims – a piece of wall from the 200s!Friday night we just ended up chatting at “The Glue Pot” since it was already late when we got to Reims and could do any site seeing. The man at our hotel was super, super nice as well!
Saturday, we visited the Cathedral where the French kings were crowned and where Napoleon crowned himself. At first it seemed just like a normal cathedral, but the history there made it special. It was interesting that there were some very modern stain-glass windows there (some as recent as last year). After the cathedral, we walked around a bit and grabbed lunch. Then we visited the Palais Tau, which is now a museum about the cathedral. It was decently interesting. It was full of old religious relics and showed that the cathedral is being restored (which explained the parts of its façade that were particularly immaculate).
As daylight was fading and it started to drizzle, we popped into a bistro and had tea and coco before heading off… to go browse through the stores. Our browsing failed and turned into shopping. It was a fun evening. We finished it off with dinner and even though we were going to try to go to bed early – we were up ‘till 1am again!
Sunday we checked out of our hotel and headed of to Pommery, one of the Champagne companies. I had booked us a 1 hour French tour. We managed to find some buses that passed in the vicinity and didn’t have to walk 50 minutes to get there! Pommery was amazing. It was run by Mme Pommery, even at a time where women didn’t run businesses! We learned all about how champagne is made and got to go down into the chalk caves and see tons of champagne in the making! At the end of the tour, we got to do a champagne tasting. We got to try a brut, a millenaire, and a winter champagne. Champagne isn’t my favorite, but I preferred the winter one.
Welcome to Pommery! Reminds you of Candy Land doesn’t it?
Just a little champagne…
Champagne art.
Champagne glasses…
Mme Pommery
You are now entering the Champagne caves and the modern art display that was focused on noise…
This was one of the only soundless pieces and was hung directly in front of a stone carving that dates from the beginning of the caves.
Champagne in the making.
The only piece of art we could touch – which made the bells ring. LOVED IT!!!!!!!
I actually got to swing down in the champagne caves!!!!
Stone carving of Mme Pommery
Self-moving intruments. It was pretty neat – email for a video.
One of the coolest art things they had – ghostly boots – again, email for a video.
Pommery’s Champagne collection…
Champagne tasting for 2!
I’m either really small, or that bottle is rather large…
Afterwards, we just wandered a little, grabbed lunch, picked up our stuff at the hotel, and started our trek back to our little towns. I took a taxi home from the train station and it was surprisingly simple.
One of the things we didn’t get to visit right next to Pommery… it looked rather cool. I don’t remember exactly – but it may have been Mme Pommery’s house.
One of the better religious statue sets I’ve come across.
Inside the Basilika…
No comments:
Post a Comment