I know it has been unbelievably long since my last post, so here comes about 3 or 4 posts back-to-back to talk about my amazing trips over the last month. I apologize for the delay and promise to be better for these last 6 weeks! (I also can't believe that's all there is left!)
The weekend of February 25-26 I made two day trips to other French cities, Reims and Chartres. Friday morning was our early depart to Reims, on the TGV or Train à Grande Vitesse, France's version of the high-speed train. It can reach speeds of over 300 mph! Thanks to this lovely piece of engineering we made it to Reims which is about 80 miles away from Paris in under an hour. Here's a map to give you an idea of where we were:
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| La France! |
Reims is a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France... yes, that kind of Champagne! Reims is one of the centers of Champagne production in the region. Technically, real "Champagne" can only be produced in this region of France, no where else in the world! So if someone ever tries to tell you they're giving you Californian Champagne... sorry, it's not the real thing. Anything else is considered sparkling wine. The French are very protective over their wine!
Our visit of Reims began with one of the biggest sites, the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Reims. This is one of the most important cathedrals in France because it was the site of the coronation of many of France's kings (think of it like Westminster Abbey for France). It is also the site of the baptism of France's very first king, Clovis in the year 496. Needless to say, it's pretty old and important! It's also very beautiful.
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| La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims |
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| Place of the Baptism of Clovis, first King of France |
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| Inside the cathedral |
There are a ton more pictures of the cathedral on
my picture site if you'd like to see them! After seeing the cathedral we visited the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Reims and then walked around the city a little before having lunch. The town is so different from Paris - much much smaller - but very cute! It was interested to get a taste of French cities outside of Paris. After lunch we headed to the Taittinger Champagne Cellars. Taittinger is a family-owned Champagne house located in Reims. Here we took a tour of their cellars, some of which are centuries old! Part of the caves were built by monks, as the caves are located under the site of an abbey. Other parts of the caves were actually built during the Roman times and stem from the 4th century! It was really interested to see all of the work that goes into making a bottle of Champagne, they must sit and be turned daily small increments so that the sentiments in the wine come out and the carbonation forms. Some bottles take up to 8 years to be finished! After the tour we got a taste of the Champagne and it was of course delicious!
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| 70,000+ bottles of Champagne! |
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| one of the caves |
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| sipping champagne :) |
After the tour we visited the Basilica of St. Remi, the Saint that baptized Clovis. We also visited another museum that showed some military history of France. Pictures of these are also on the site. We ended our day with dinner at an adorable crêperie and then headed back to Paris on the TGV, exhausted but excited for the next day!
Saturday morning (a little later this time, thankfully) we took the train again (not the high-speed one though) to Chartres, a small city located 60 miles southwest of Paris. The town is pretty small but really cute, and mostly on a hill. At the top of the hill sits the town's main attraction, la Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chatres. This Notre Dame is one of the largest and most important gothic cathedrals in France, with huge stained glass windows, most of which are part of the original, and enormous flying buttresses. The cathedral was absolutely gorgeous, and definitely larger than those in Reims and Paris. Another excited part of our visit to this one was that we climbed to the top! Up many many tiny spiral steps we made our way to the top of the cathedral and had the most amazing view of the entire town. It is definitely worth a visit if you ever go to France!
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| Sadly they were doing construction on the front :( |
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| stained glass inside |
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| At the top! |
The rest of the day in Chartres was a lot of fun, we did a lot of walking around the town which was so quaint and quiet - so different from Paris! We were lucky that it didn't rain as it was supposed to even though it was a little cloudy. Overall the weekend was a ton of fun, it was great to get out of Paris for a little while and explore different French cities. Both Reims and Chartres were beautiful places that I would recommend for anyone to visit!
More entries coming soon, à très bientôt!
