I Heart Belgium- Honeymoon/Semana Santa VIII

After our honeymoon in Reims, we took the train to Brussels, where we had a night to stay before heading back to Spain.  We love Brussels!  This was our third trip here and it was nice to be back.  Brussels has the best mussels and frites, everyone speaks French, Flemish, and English, and the city is so beautiful and unique.  Unfortunately, the only pictures we got were when we walked through a small cathedral (go figure)- but here is our time in Brussels!  

 

And we may have had Pizza Hut for dinner...

The Character of Reims- Honeymoon/Semana Santa Part VII

Besides all the Champagne vineyards, Reims was full of character. 

One of the amazing things about Reims was its' architecture.  Everywhere you looked you could see unique buildings!

The city does a great job highlighting their buildings at night!

 

 

AND it has amazing food, like mussels and frites!!

                                This guy's favorite                            And of course a unicycle-ist

And I just love the ancient Roman ruins that are chillin' in the middle of a carnival.  Yes, those are Roman ruins back there... behind the ferris wheel...

 

The Ruins!

 

We were only in Reims for 5 days, but it was enough time to explore the small town and see what it has to offer.  It does make me wonder what other small towns have and where else we need to explore...

Moving on

At the beginning of the year, we got together with other Americans to have a pot luck dinner.  We continued to have our pot luck nearly every Sunday night of the year.  Last Sunday, we had our final Sunday night dinner.  We celebrated with some paella and vino!  It was definitely a bitter sweet feeling.  Some of our friends will be staying through the summer, some will go back to the states for good, and a few will be returning in the Fall for another year!  We'll be heading back to the States on June 15th and hoping to move to Greenville, SC this summer.  We're looking forward to a new adventure :) 

 



Reims Cathedral- Honeymoon/Semana Santa Part VI

On our travels recently, we've seemed to wander into several cathedrals.  There's something about majestic buildings that were created with basic tools hundreds of year ago that just draw you in.   The cathedral in Reims was no exception and rivaled that of Notre Dame in Paris.  At night you could see it lit up from a distance and it was beautiful! 

 

At 800 years old, it's looking pretty good!  The Reims Cathedral was built after a fire destroyed a church in the same location in 1211.  It was partially destroyed in WWI and has since been rebuilt.  Not a shabby way to spend some time. 

Bus to Where?

As seen in Reims

Veuve Clicquot Champagne - Honeymoon/Semana Santa Pt. V

The second champagne house we visited, and the one we were most excited about, was Veuve Clicquot on the south side of Reims.

We started the tour and learned about 'Le Grande Dame' Madame Clicquot, who was one of the first female business owners in France in the early 1800's.  

Fun Fact:

The caves Veuve uses to store their champagne were originally mined out by the Romans in ~200bc for the construction of buildings and monuments in the area.

Unfortunately, our tour of the caves was cut short by an untimely illness.  But the staff there were awesome and we had already done about half of the tour.  Next time were in Reims we'll do the whole sha-bang!

G.H. Mumm Champagne - Honeymoon/Semana Santa Pt. IV

I know, I know.  It took us a while to get to the good stuff.  Here we go...

Our first champagne stop in Reims was G.H. Mumm (like moo-m).  After getting only a little bit lost we made it there for our 'Premiere' champagne tour.

Fun Facts:

1) Mumm is the third highest selling champagne in the world.  

2) Cordon Rouge (red ribbon) non-vintage champagne is what they spray on each other on the podiums of Formula 1 races.

3) The best champagne is always in magnum (1.5L) bottles.

The champagne region of France is technically too wet to be a good place to grow wine grapes.  However, underneath the entire region is chalk which helps the ground drain better than normal allowing grapes to be grown.  The chalk also absorbs water and because of this, the caves where the champagne gets stored are humid and stay a constant temperature.

Apparently the walls also come in handy when you forgot your calculator...

They have over 24km of tunnels in the ground and so they give them street names and signs to keep everything organized.

After touring the cellars (and seeing champagne bottled in the 1870's) we went upstairs and sampled some champagne.  Because we're awesome (and signed up for the Premiere tour) Kelly and I (and one other guy) got to sample two vintage champagnes, a rose and a brut, while everyone else only had one non-vintage glass.  Suckers...

Trains - Honeymoon/Semana Santa Pt. III

After our brief stint in Paris we went to the Gare de L'est and caught our train to Reims.  Since we live a life of ease and leisure, we booked first class seats facing each other with a table in between.

Train travel is by far one of the best things about Europe and, as you can tell, I am suuuuper excited about this (and the Gouda flavored crackers, which were delicious).

As you can see from the screen behind the girl with the silly cheeks, the train goes well over 300kph (186mph).  The highest speed we saw the screen get up to was 330kph, which is over 200 mph.

Just in case you were wondering why someone had silly, puffy cheeks.  The answer, as usual, is wine.

Checking out the scenery.  Even going really fast, its a great way to see parts of the country outside of the city.  And doing so with a Belgian beer and (amazing) French crackers makes it even better.

More Paris! - Honeymoon/Semana Santa Pt. II

After we found our (new) hotel in Paris and had a good nights sleep, we woke up (relatively) early and killed a few hours walking along the Seine before our train trip to Reims.

We took the Metro to the Ile de Cite, grabbed a cafe au lait and a croissant, and went to check out Notre Dame.

We have been to Notre Dame twice before, but this was the first time the line to get in wasn't insanely long so we finally got to go inside.  And it's huge.  And beautiful.  

There was a small service going on so we wandered around the periphery of the church.  Interestingly (to me) the stain glass windows actually open to allow air to circulate.

Next, we decided to wander towards the Eiffel Tower.  Except we went the wrong way (and no, you couldn't just see it and walk towards it, I think).  But we did find the soon to be closed lock bridge which Kelly wanted to put a lock on.  However, we didn't have a lock so we started walking back in the right direction until we came across a guy selling locks.  So we bought a lock and then walked back to the bridge where we got our lock on:)

We walked down to the closed road that runs next to the river, and it turns out they have lots of awesome games painted there.  Like the long jump here.

And, because its Paris, there are tons of places to take really good pictures.  Across the river in this picture, under the white tents, is a small flea market that we went and visited.  I'm pretty sure any Francophile could furnish their entire house there.

We also ran across this barge/park.  Its 3 old barges that have been turned into a park with plants, trees, and even a greenhouse.

And also these sweet nets that looked like a great place to take a nap except that they were not comfortable at all.

Finally, we made it to Paris's big radio tower.  After walking around (we have never gone up, going in things isn't really our M.O. for traveling if you haven't noticed) we decided to find some food and take in the nice weather and the great view.

We stopped at a stand to get Frites and Wine.  However, they would only sell you frites (which they were dumping straight out of the Carrefour bag into the fryer, how authentic)if you got 2 hot dogs with them.  Picture french fries and 2 hot dogs... got it?...  Wrong.  We got a small bowl filled with fries with 2 hotdogs (no buns) layed across the top.  Fortunately, Kelly proceeded to immediately drop the hotdogs on the ground, so we ended up with just frites and wine after all, which we sat and ate right in front of the Eiffel Tower (Most enjoyable moment of this, watching a crow try and grab these hotdogs.  After a few tries he just got the whole thing in his mouth (sideways) and flew off).