The city of kings and champagne

Having already explored wine country in Burgundy during their first visit two year prior, my parents and I set out yesterday to get to know Champagne, the region and the drink. We hopped on a very early TGV (high speed train, literally train à grande vitesse) after a late night-- ouch-- to Reims (pronounced sort of like the first half of the word "rancid"), the capital of Champagne. The forty-five minute train ride was hardly enough for a nap, and soon enough we were in Square Colbert contemplating a certain comedian's ancestry as we tried to get our bearings.

We quickly found our first historical feature of the city, les biscuits roses de Reims, the pink cookies made by the Maison Fossier. (Fun fact: the word biscuit comes from the words bis- a word related to two or twice- and cuit- French for cooked- because the cookies were baked twice.) The pink cookies are light and airy and crispy, and were originally made pink to mask the brown spots left by the specks of vanilla flavoring. Today the cookies also come with other flavors. The chocolate-dipped pear-flavored bag hardly survived the weekend in our hands.

Next stop was the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Reims, site of the baptism of Clovis, the first French kind to covert to Christianity, and subsequently the location of twenty-five coronations, including that of the king saved and brought to Reims by Joan of Arc.

The Reims Cathedral

The cathedral was severely damaged during World War I, as was much of the city. And guess who was one of the artists brought in to redo the stained glass? None other than our favorite Chagall who was featured in the Opéra Garnier in my last entry. Some of the remains of the damaged church, including gargoyles vomiting lead that melted out of the stained glass during the bombings, were on display next door in the old archbishop's residence, the Palais de Tau, now a history museum. There were also fun artifacts like Charlemagne's talisman and some robes and the replica of a crown worn during coronations.

In the museum of the Palais de Tau: The gargoyles vomited lead when it melted out of the stained glass during a bombing of the cathedral in WWI. Also on display, Charlemagne's talisman and a replica of Louis XV's crown.

After checking off the cathedral and the Palais de Tau, filling our stomachs, and relaxing over tea and strawberries with mascarpone, we began in earnest our afternoon mission: finding a champagne cellar.

We wandered through Reims in the hunt of the Mumm's champagne cellar, passing by city hall already decked out for Bastille Day.

Spotted on the walk through town. I'm pretty sure that when I get filthy rich, I could deal with having gates with my initials like this.

Mumm's, described as an easy walk from the center of town, doesn't leave you expecting to be walking down dead industrial back streets, and yet. And what a pleasure our reception was at the end, when the receptionist scolded us for not having made reservations and told us that we'd simply have to wait until 3pm. It was 2:55. I think we can say that the tour was worth the wait. We wandered through dark and refreshingly cool cellars where we learned how champagne is made, including the work of a person called "the riddler," a profession whose title is the biggest perk. During the last few weeks before bottling for sale, this person precisely rotated tens of thousands of bottles a day deep in the depths of the cellars. The tout wrapped up with a tasting of Mumm's Cordon Rouge, a nice way to close things up before facing again the afternoon sun.

A champagne display inside the Mumm cellars

On the way back into town, we swung past the Porte de Mars, a Roman ruin that we'd chanced upon during our walk to Mum's a couple of hours prior. I love how Roman ruins are just scattered around cities across Western Europe.

The Porte de Mars, a random Romain ruin plopped on the side of a street in Reims

Finally, in case we had not fully touristed out the town, we spent our last hours in a nearly privatized tour of the Musée-Hôtel Le Vergeur, an old private home from Rennaissance times completely restored and filled with salvaged décor from many of the wealthy historical homes damanged during the First World War, a sort of monument to the glory of Reims. The project was the life work of a wealthy and well-traveled bachelor who had a penchant for art and interior décor, and little interest in married life. (We noticed that the tour guide carefully skipped over any mention of supposed sexuality.) Afterward, we just had time for a beer before catching the train home, exhausted.

The train ride perked us up enough, though. We found the energy upon returning to the city of lights to walk a couple of blocks, swing by a grocery store, and share a picnic dinner along the Canal Saint Martin.

We picnicked for dinner along the Canal Saint Martin after returning from Reims.

 All was well until we ran out of wine.

To our surprise and horror, we ran out of wine!

We found a solution in hibiscus-muddle cucumber-vodka cocktails at the neatly tucked away Comptoir Général. Not everyone's parents are up for a Saturday night in a hidden, quintessential hipster bar, but mine were even up for a second round of drinks and a full tour of the place before heading home.

Finishing off the day with hibiscus cucumber vodka cocktails at the Comptoir Général.

It was a solid day and we all slept very well that night.