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Today we bid farewell to Paris and headed to the airport to collect our rental car, the transfer was seamless and we were chugging along the highway in no time in our ugly, boxlike Skoda Yeti diesel.
Rosie is not going to dis the Skoda, the suitcases fit like a dream in the boot and there is plenty of room in the back seat to chuck in extras along the way….We had preloaded European maps onto our own NavMan and our Australian accented dude was guiding us around France no problems.
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Reims here we come! Within five minutes of exiting the airport we were in the countryside, great swathes of green flat land planted in crops and rapeoil as far as the eye could see. The speed limit on the autoroute was 130km (and not dissing the Skoda) The Operator had his foot down flat and we were just doing it with not alot more to spare. This direct route to Reims was a toll road and we paid 8.50 euro for the privilege of beautiful, easy driving.
The Campanile Reims Hotel is right on the edge of the old town and about 800 meters from Reims Cathedral, the perfect place to launch an afternoon sightseeing mission, before the rain comes….Rosie is going to revise her earlier statement and say it always rains in the after in France.
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What a breathtakingly beautiful town Reims is, cut from golden sandstone that gleamed like a beach in the sunshine. Walking into the centre and looking skyward the Gothic towers of the cathedral loomed over the houses. When you first saw the cathedral down the avenue, the size, height and intricate facade is just astonishing.
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The facade is one of the great masterpieces of the Middle Ages and was severely damaged during German shellfire in the opening days of WW1, fire from the shelling burnt the wooden interior sub structure, the lead roofs melted and poured through the stone gargoyles like a river to the street below. Restoration work began in 1919 and is still ongoing.
The cathedral construction started in 1211 and took took over 60 years to complete.
During the Hundred Year War the English held Reims for many years until it was liberated by Joan of Arc in 1429.
33 Kings of France have been crowned here – the last in 1825.
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Inside the cathedral the light filters through the stained glass windows barely touching the ground. The gloom is heavy and pious and everyone talks in hushed whispers. The height of the building is accentuated from the inside as was the intention of the design, we all sit and stare heavenward in awe.
Then the weather broke, the rain poured down in sheets, lightening flashed and thunder boomed, right over our heads, it was so loud and echoed around the church….a sign? A sign that Rosie was going to get satched heading back to the hotel. Never fear, The Operator is near….in a break in the weather The Operator ran back to the hotel and collected the Skoda, he raced to collect Rosie from the portico of the church were herself and 10 others were waiting out the rain which had started again. The Operator drove the Skoda onto the pedestrian only courtyard in front of the cathedral did a zippy turn to have the door facing Rosie and off we went….Rosies hero.
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Seeing it was raining, there was only one thing for it…a visit to GH Mumm…that’s what we are here for champagne, champagne, champagne!
GH Mumm (pronounced Moom) were having a slow day today and we were able to get on a cellar tour in English straight away. The hour tour was fantastic and totally worth the 15euro fee each, especially as a champagne tasting was included at the end.
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It is unbelievable how much time and work goes into making of a bottle of champagne….makes you understand abit better why you pay so much for it…..
Daphne was our tour guide, her french accented English was perfect for the tour, she was very knowledgeable of the whole grape to goblet process. All of the Champagne Houses cellars run under the town of Reims, they are hand cut chalk tunnels which store the champagne at a natural never changing 10c, there is over 250kms of underground passages below the city.
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The Mumm cellars that we visited house 20,000,000 bottles of champagne! Each bottle is stored for a minimum of 3 years in an underground warren of tunnels. The photo left is one of the main transit lines and all the openings off it are just as long filled with the racks of wine like the above photo. Mumm employees 5 riddlers….the dudes that turn the champagne bottles by hand, a quarter turn…every day during peak maturation…each riddler works underground in the windowless caverns in murky light and turns 40,000 bottles each per day. Plus it takes three years training to become a riddler!
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The actual process was amazing and the size of the cellars mind blowing. We finished our tour in the cave which housed the Mumm museum. As Mumm had been in production since the 1820s they kept, as you do, all the old machinery as it was upgraded….theres alot of history there alright and it was fascinating too. By this time Rosie and the Operator were waiting for the business end of the tour….we were a little dry and were looking forward to our sample of champagne……delicious! Two bottles to go please.
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Images of Reims around the locality of where we are staying, taken on an evening stroll. The rain came with force and then dissapeared…it was a lovely evening.
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As Rosie and The Operator were wandering around town pretty late we though we would just have a pizza for tea. We found a place that had a pizza menu just as long as some of the champagne menus. Snails anyone? Rosie had a Escargotine pizza…a total French gimmick…then again maybe they are laughing at us….
Tomorrow we drive out to Epernay and visit some more Champagne Houses and check outt he countryside that makes champagne.
