On our recent trip to Paris, we decided to take a small side trip to Reims. Reims is about 90 miles north-east of Paris and is one of the main champagne cities. We bought train tickets from Paris Est Station to Reims. It was a direct 200 mph train that took only 45 minutes. Once their Reims a beautiful city to walk around. It has its own Notre Dame Cathedral. It has great shopping and many restaurants and cafe’s. We walked around in the morning then stopped for lunch. After lunch we went to Tattinger Champagne house. It is the 3rd oldest champagne house in France. They have a huge area of caves that hold millions of bottles of champagne. they also have a modern facility that holds another 20 million bottles. Champagne is hand turned carefully to collect the sentiment in the bottle. It is then turned up-side-down and the neck is frozen. In this way the small ice wedge is extracted with the sediment. After a great tour we had some ice cream…yum!
We sat at cafe’s and had wine or beer and watched both the French and the tourists go by. This is a must trip if you like smaller cities than Paris. It is also a must if you enjoy real champagne. The train trip back to Paris was equally fast. All in all, it was an enjoyable day outside of Paris.
George & Jo Anne
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