Tag: Reims

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Champagne at Thanksgiving…continued

Time to find a place to stay:

Reims seemed to be an obvious choice. Big name Champagne houses in town, five main wine producing areas nearby, and close enough to small villages with their own Champagne houses, this fit the bill.

Since we were only going to be there 10 days, I decided to focus on three of those five main wine producing areas. Thes five regions include Montagne de Reims, Vallee de la Marne, Cote des Blancs, Cote des Bar, and Cote de Sezanne.

Montagne de Reims is known for Pinot Noir grapes. We could find the towns and villages of Mailly, Verzenay, and Verzy.

Grapes grown in the Vallee de la Marne are Pinot Meunier and are centered mostly around Epernay and Ay.

Cote des Blancs is known for its Chardonnay grapes, The villages of Avize, Cramant, and Chouilly,

Pinot Noir and some Chardonnay in the hills can be found in the Cote des Bar region.

Much smaller in size in the Cote de Sezanne region where you will find both Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. These tend to be fruit forward in taste.

When we travel, we like to stay in apartments instead of hotels. Nothing against hotels. But, staying in a space like an apartment gives us more options. We can eat breakfast or snacks in our own space, put a bottle or two of Champagne in the refrigerator for later, do some laundry if we need to, and have more space to spread out.

Since we travel a lot, I spend quite a bit of time searching rentals from Airbnb, VRBO, and any other vacation rental companies I find. This time there was just my husband and me so I searched for a one bedroom, one bathroom apartment with a washer close to the main area in Reims. Keep in mind when renting an apartment in Europe, bathrooms can mean different things than we might assume here in the US. If you like a shower, make sure that is specifically listed. If you prefer a tub, look for that.

Reminder…When looking for an apartment with two bathrooms, check to see how many toilets (water closets) are listed. If the listing doesn’t specifically say, check the photos carefully. We’ve thought we had two toilets when we traveled with my brother and sister-in-law only to find out the listing that said two complete bathrooms did not actually include two toilets. Yes, it had two showers and two sinks but only one toilet. Had we looked at all the photos carefully, we would have seen their two pictures of toilets were actually the some one just photographed from different angles.

In Reims we ended up with an amazing apartment that included a parking garage. Our host spoke no English and my French is fairly weak. I’m much better at reading it than speaking! We made it work by translating through an app. He met us on a side street as the street where we were staying had bollards. We needed a card to scan as we entered the street so the bollards could descend into the street and we could drive through.

The apartment could not have been better. Spacious and well equipped, we could have easily stayed for a month instead of nine days! Location was perfect with walking distance to everything we needed. I’ve tried to book this apartment a second time but it was already booked. I can definitely see why. It’s one of the best places we have stayed.

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Pommery Champagne House

Pommery Champagne House

Not only does Pommery produce an amazing dry Champagne, the history surrounding Madame Pommery is truly an interesting aspect of this house.

She was one of the great Champagne widows of the 19th century. She is the one you can credit with bring the sweeter sparkling wines to a dryer Champagne. Pommery was born in 1819 and married into a prominent wool family in Reims, France. Once her two sons were born, her husband left the wool industry and dived into the wine business. Two years later, he died. She was only 38 years old.

At that point she decided to carry on with his wine business, changing the business plan fairly quickly from red wines to sparkling wines. She had the uncanny ability to see that the English market would take a liking to delicate, fine, dry Champagne. And, it did.

Ahead of her time, she created Pommery Nature in 1874, the first brut Champagne that had major commercial success. In 1868 she decided to relocate to a different place and launched the “construction site of the century” in Reims. She used the crayeres chalkpits as wine cellars. French and Belgian miners had dug into the earth an interconnected set of tunnels.

Today, the variety of grapes used, the quality of the harvest, the selection of vintages for blends, and the time spent ageing in the cellar all add to the special flavors of Pommery Champagne.

So many processes and procedures go into making this Champagne, with oenologists and the Cellar Master testing the entire way. This ensures Pommery’s distinctive aroma, flavor, and quality will be there in every bottle.

Take a tour, taste the Champagne, and do not miss the lower level of galleries. The staircase alone is amazing if not monumental. With 116 steps down is the only connection to the lower level of caves from the main level.

Art, sculptures, and rotating exhibits are tastefully arranged throughout the lower level. The Pommery Champagne house is not only a feast for your mouth…it’s a feast for your eyes as well.

Cheers!

If You Go: Pollery is located at 5 Place du General Gouraud, Reims, France

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Reims, France Cathedral

This church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and acclaimed as a Gothic masterpiece for its sculptural decoration and architecture.

Parts of the building are much older than the gothic period, as the romanesque nave and transepts are from the 1000s.

Later gothic additions like the choir ambulatory and facade are masterful in the way they help form a unified whole.

The historic relics of Reims’ patron saint are inside: Saint-Remi was the bishop noted for baptising Clovis the King of Franks around the turn of the 6th century.

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Reims, France Cathedral

At the site of 900 years-worth of royal coronations, it’s almost mind-blowing to think of all the historical figures that have passed through.

Before you enter see if you can find the Smiling Angel in the north portal of the west facade.

It’s a 13th century sculpture with its own story to tell, as it was beheaded during the German bombing in 1914 and the fragments became a famous piece of anti-German propaganda within France.

The Smiling Angel is one of a small army of sculpted figures on the facade, more than any other cathedral in Europe apart from Chartres.

And finally for art lovers, in the apse you can find stained glass windows designed by Marc Chagall to replace those damaged in the war.

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Reims, France

Remembering Reims, France and all it has to offer. These are a few highlights from our trip last year.

Reims is a city in northeastern France’s Grand Est region. It’s the unofficial capital of the Champagne wine-growing region, and many of the champagne houses headquartered there offer tastings and cellar tours. For more than 1,000 years, French kings were crowned at its Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims. This grand cathedral is known for its stained-glass windows and Gothic carved portals, including the Smiling Angel.

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Notre Dame de Reims Cathedral

Notre Dame de Reims

It’s not uncommon for cities in France to have more than one church or even more than one cathedral. In fact, we sort of expect to see different sizes each with their own amazing features. It is always humbling when we realize the time frame in which they were built. We are not talking about the last 50 years, either.

Some have weathered well. Others, not so much. Some were casualties of a world war or some group fighting against another one. Still, some remain almost unblemished.

We visited tiny towns with huge churches whose steeples dominated their skylines. Other cities and their skylines were dotted with various sizes of steeples, turrets, and rising columns full of stained glass.

We had been visiting several churches and cathedrals in different cities and towns in the Champagne area of France. We didn’t need to travel far to find different architecture, yet similar looks.  

One, in particular, captured our hearts. Notre Dame de Reims…

This cathedral has been an important part of French history. It’s also classified by UNESCO as a world heritage site. But, that’s not all we loved about it.

First a little history…

  • It was built between 1211 and 1275
  • For 800 years it is where the kings of France were crowned, 25 of them
  • It is the second cathedral, after Chartes, with the largest number of statues and statuettes. If you want, you can count 2,300 of them.
  • The two impressive rose windows are imposing…and stunning as the light shines through them
  • There are original stained-glass windows from the 13th Century and ones from as recent as 2015
  • 13th Century Gothic architecture is mixed with more recent architecture due to bombings and destruction during both World Wars

Okay, many cathedrals have their own history. This one just happens to have more than others.

As are many cathedrals, this one was huge inside. How huge?

  • Total length of the cathedral is 500 feet. Notre Dame de Paris is 425 feet long.
  • Height in the nave is 125 feet
  • Towers are almost 270 feet tall
  • The outside spire is about 290 feet
  • Inside the total floor area is close to 22,000 square feet
  • Diameter of the west front Rose Window is 41 feet
  • Total square feet of windows is 12,800 square feet

No wonder it took us over an hour just to walk around and admire the spectacular interior.

Some favorites during our visit…

  • Three stained glass windows in the axial chapel that were produced in 1974 by Marc Chagall
  • The first Chagall window includes the theme of the Tree of Jesse
  • The central Chagall window is the sacrifice of Isaac
  • The right Chagall window includes some of the great times in Reims history, including the baptism of Clovis and the coronation of Saint Louis and Charles VII
  • We often see one magnificent rose window. Here, there are two. Looking up, each one did not seem to be over 40 feet across.
  • Light streaming in through all the windows showcased this magnificent cathedral, giving us a sense of peace

If you find yourself in or near Reims, France, this is definitely worth the time to visit. Its beauty is hard to match.