Reims

Yesterday, we spent the day in Reims, which is about 2 hours northeast of Paris. We started by visiting the cathedral, which was built in the 13th century. The cathedral, as well as the churches that stood on the same plot before it was built, was the location of a vast majority of the coronation ceremonies held for French kings. We learned the history of the region, extending all the way back to Clovis, who united the Franks, the Gauls, and a portion of the Germanic tribes in the region under one king. He also introduced Christianity to the Franks.

The cathedral is absolutely gorgeous, with huge statues and stained-glass windows. Some of the statues were damaged during WWI, when many bombs were dropped on Reims, but amazingly the arches in the Cathedral kept it from falling down. In the 18th century, during the Siècle de Lumière, many of the stained-glass windows were removed because, while gorgeous, they did not let enough light into the church. However, the front rose windows and the stained-glass windows created by Marc Chagall in the 1970s are still there.




After the cathedral and a warm lunch (it was FREEZING in Reims yesterday!), we went to Pommery to visit the caves and taste champagne. Although "cave" technically translates to cellar, the champagne at Pommery is truly kept in caves! We were 30m underground, surrounded by 20,000,000 bottles of champagne of various sizes and in various stages of fermentation. It was so cool to learn about the history of the brand. Mme Louise Pommery created Brüt Champagne in 1874. Brüt only has 10g of sugar per liter, where as earlier champagnes had as much as 100g per liter!!! There is even a bottle of champagne from the first bottling of brüt in 1874 kept in the caves at Pommery. However, as we learned, Champagne does not improve with age like wine does. More than 3-5 years after it is purchased, it starts to degrade, so that bottle would probably not taste so good!




The names of cities on the wall represent markets that Mme Pommery expanded into as she developed the house of Pommery after her husband's death.

Back in Paris, Katie and I had dinner and watched Sex and the City until we met up with Lily, Becca, and Juan at a fun Sangria bar near Odéon. Today, Lily and I are visiting the Catacombs!!! Hopefully I won't get scared...

Gros Bisous,
Jaimie