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. 

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).

Paris - Honeymoon/Semana Santa Pt. I

We left Palma on Thursday and took a Ryanair flight to the Paris-Beauvais airport.  From there you have to take an hour and 15 minute bus ride into the city center.  We were supposed to meet the owner of our apartment-hotel near the Arc de Triomphe at 9 so we took a cab, went through the huge and terrifying traffic circle around the Arc, and made it to the address just on time.

And no one was there.

We were able to get into the main outdoor entrance which led to a big courtyard when someone else left the building.

But no one was there.

We tried to get in the interior door using the electronic key code they gave us.

But it didn't work.

After we walked around everywhere we could get into inside the building, we found a listing of all of the business that were housed there (and there were at least 20) and looked for Aparthotel Cocoon Paris.

But it didn't exist.

As a guy was walking in with his groceries, we flagged him down and asked him if he knew where this place was.  He lived in the building (the top floors were apartments, which seemed like a good sign).

And he had no idea what this place was.

He walked with us outside to look and see if maybe the address was wrong and in the process stopped a repairman and asked him.  He and the repairman talked about it for a while and even used their phones to check that the address was correct and all that.

And they couldn't find it.

The Hotel Le Royal Monceau, a five star hotel, was across the street and we walked over there and asked the doorman and concierge about our hotel.

And they had never heard of it.

The concierge walked over to the the building in question and spent ten minutes trying to figure it out all the while calling the two phone numbers we had for the 'hotel' multiple times.

And getting no response.

Then another gentleman from the hotel came over and eventually we got in when a person who lived there was leaving.  We asked her about the 'hotel' too.

Yep, no idea.

The gentlemen from the Monceau, decided that the whole thing was a scam (they even allowed us to use their check in computer to double check our reservation) and let us use their business center free of charge to book a new hotel.  (on a side note: they never once tried to get us to book a room in the hotel since rooms there were going for 900 euros a night, which was a smidge out of our price range.)  We found a new place in Montmare, about 5km away, hopped in a cab, and 15 minutes later we were dropped off in front of our hotel.

That existed!!

We finally checked into our new hotel at 10:30pm, at which point we were just ready to eat dinner.  Fortunately Paris is...  Paris, and we were able to get an awesome meal of Croque Madame and vino at 11:15 at night.  We stopped by a shop on the way home and picked up a bottle of wine, got back to the hotel and toasted our trip, and then went to bed.  Ending the second most amusing hotel story in the history of France.