Hello again!
The adventure goes on in another R city: Reims. So just a brief description: the city is considered the unofficial capital of the Champagne wine-growing region and it belong to the region of Grand Est. If the champagne is not enough to convince you to take a trip there, you should also know that the city has played important roles in the history of France, from the period of the Roman Empire to the WWII. I am not gonna provide all the historical details in here (just the main points) because I think it's better when you discover them yourself during your trip.
Transportation
Reims is located 150 km away from Paris and that's a 2-2 and a half hour trip by bus. This time I chose to go with
Ouibus (departure from Bercy - you can get there with M14) and I came back with
Isilines (arrival at Gallieni - terminus of M3). The price of the round trip was 20 euros.
The bus station in Reims is called Champagne-Ardenne TGV (it is also a train station) and it is situated outside the city. After arriving at the bus station, I just had to walk down the hill for 100 m and I got to the tram station. Tram B is the one which goes to the center of the city. There is a ticket machine right in the station and you can choose a one, two or 24h ticket. I paid 4 euros for a 24h ticket. You get a paper card that works both for trams and buses and you have to scan it for every trip.
Visiting around
First of all, I have to say that I have never seen a touristic city less popular than Reims. There were only some groups of tourists at the main cathedral and the rest of the city was almost empty. And believe me, the city has a looooooot of things to offer to visitors.
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| Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims |
The tram left me at the Opera station, right in the center of Reims. From there, there is a 2 minutes walk to the
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims. I have seen many churches and cathedrals since I arrived in France, but I have to say: this one is absolutely stunning. Personally, I liked it even more than Notre-Dame de Paris (I think this is considered like a form of sacrilege or so). The original
church dates back to 5th century, but it was destroyed in a fire in 1211. The cathedral was built on the site of the old church and it was completed in 1275. For the next centuries, the cathedral served as the place where French kings were crowned during a five hours ceremony. During the WWI, the German bombardments destroyed a considerable part of the cathedral, including the roof, some of the stained glass and the bishop's palace. Nonetheless, the intensive restoration works were able to repair all the damages done to the cathedral. The works were successfully completed in 1938 and gave the cathedral the current aspect.
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| Inside and outside of Notre-Dame Cathedral |
Next to the cathedral, you can find
Palais du Tau, named like this because it has the shape of the letter T. Just like the cathedral, Palais du Tau dates back to 13th century and it underwent the same stormy history. Nowadays, the whole palace is turned into a museum and it shows mostly objects that belonged to the cathedral, a part of its treasure and statues partially destroyed by the WWI bombardments. The thing that totally amazed me about this place, besides the great architecture and the value of the exponents, was that, on a Saturday afternoon, there were barely 10 tourists in all the museum. Even if you don't read the information provided and you only take a walk inside, it is still a very nice place to see, so I don't understand the reasons behind its unpopularity.
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| Palais du Tau |
Leaving the city touristic center, I took a walk towards Place Drouet d' Erlon. The streets surrounding the square are full of restaurants, bistros and bars, so I stopped at one that draw my attention. It was called
Supercrêpes (yes, I have a weakness for crêpes). The place drew my attention firstly because it
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| Supercrêpes and the Catwoman crêpe |
was full of superheroes figurines and all the crêpes had superhero names; secondly because they were using whole wheat flour and bio products. I took a Catwoman (it had vegetables and cheese) and I think it was one of the best healthy foods that I've ever had. They have both salted and sugary crêpes and I truly recommend this place if you plan to visit Reims one day.
Right next to Supercrêpes, I found
cinema Opéra, an abandoned building from 19th century with a very beautiful facade. The cinema has been closed since 1997 due to security reasons and even though the building is a historical monument, no reconstruction had been performed since its closure.
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| Cinema Opéra |
In the history of WWII, Reims played a very important role: the document that testifies the surrender of Nazi Germany, thus putting an end to the war, was signed there on 7th May 1945. Nowadays, the building where general Eisenhower established the headquarters of the Allied Powers hosts
Le Musée de la Reddition. It is not a big museum, I finished the visit in about 20 minutes, but I found really fascinating visiting a place so full of history. This museum is even less popular than Palais du Tau, considering that you have to take a 20-30 minutes walk to get there, but I think it is worth it.
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| Inscription above the entrance of Musée de la Reddition |
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| Monument aux enfants de Reims morts pour la patrie |
When I returned to the center of Reims, I went past a monument dedicated to the children who died in the field during WWI. The monument is situated in
Square de la Mission, at one of the extremities of a long promenade. Close to the monument, there is
Porte Mars, the biggest triumphal arch from the Roman world that dates back to 3rd century AD. The arch had one part covered due to the restoration works, so I totally missed it. After that, I headed to
Halles du Boulingrin. That's not a touristic objective itself, but the building has an interesting architecture and it hosts a covered market where you can buy fruits, vegetables, traditional products and flowers.
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| Les Halles du Boulingrin |
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| In the garden of Hôtel Le Vergeur |
The next objective on my list was Musée Hôtel Le Vergeur, a place intensively praised on the internet. The museum is located in Place du Forum and it provides only guided tours every hour from 2 to 5 PM including. Even if I only managed to see this museum, I could say that my visit to Reims was worth it. The building is very well preserved and all the rooms keep their original aspect and furniture. The guided tour is very detailed and it gets you through all the history of the hotel. I was
completely amazed by everything I've seen and heard in there, so I could clearly classify the museum as a "not to be missed" place in Reims. Again, the place was not popular at all among tourists and I shared my guided tour only with two other tourists. Sadly, we were not allowed to take any pictures, so I can show you only the main facade and the inner court (quick reminder, you can click the pictures to make them bigger). The entrance fee was only 2 euros, cheaper because I had a student reduction, but still too cheap considering everything it has to offer.
50 m away from Musée Hôtel Le Vergeur, right in the middle of Place du Forum, I found
Cryptoportique Gallo-Romain de Reims, an underground gallery built in 3rd century AD, during the Roman period.
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| Inside the Cryptoportique Gallo-Romain |
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| Cryptoportique Gallo-Romain and Hôtel Le Vergeur (in the back) |
Going back towards Notre-Dame Cathedral, I arrived in
Place Royale. In the middle of the square, you can see the statue of Louis XV, also known as Louis the Beloved. Accidentally, I ended up in the middle of a bikers' protest and I have to say that French people have a really nice way of protesting. After arriving all together on their bikes, the riders just parked their bikes on the whole square and sat there, chatting, sending some colorful smoke into the air and whistling from time to time. Shortly, the bikers were complaining about the new law concerning the reduction of the speed limit on secondary roads from 90 km/h to 80 km/h.
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| Bikers' protest in Place Royale |
Leaving the protest, I headed to another not so popular museum:
Musée Automobile Reims Champagne. Not so popular means that the cashier was asking everyone where they heard of the museum from. We were 7 people in the whole museum, me and a group of 6. The museum is not located in the center of the city, so I took bus number 3 from the Opera station in the direction Moulin
de la Housse and I got off at Boussinesq station. The entrance fee was 7 euros, again with a reduction for students (for the other museums I didn't pay anything). I can definitely say that I have never seen so many old cars and motorcycles all together in my life. The place is huge and I think it clearly deserves more attention than it gets currently.
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| Graffiti from the inner court of Automobile Museum |
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| Inside the Automobile Museum |
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| Villa Demoiselle |
Afterwards, I walked for about 20 minutes to get to the neighborhood where most of the wine (champagne) cellars are located. The price for a tour + final tasting ranges from 20 to 35 euros, so I settled for just taking some pictures of
Villa Demoiselle (one of the cellars) and then I continued my journey (also I didn't have enough time to do a tour).
The next stop was
Basilique Saint-Remi, a church built in 11th century. Next to the church, there is the old Abbey Saint-Remi that had been used as a military hospital for over a century. Now it hosts
Musée Saint-Remi (another unpopular museum apparently) where you can discover the history of Reims from prehistory to Middle Age. In order to get back to the center, you can take bus number 6 in the direction Gare Centre or take a 20 minutes walk like I did.
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| Basilique Saint-Remi |
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| Musée Saint-Remi |
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| Inside the Basilique Saint-Remi |
Before my trip, the Internet told me that I should definitely just sit at a bar drinking a cup of champagne and eating the traditional pink ladyfinger cookies. Apparently, I didn't have enough time for that because I had to catch my bus back to Paris, so I just bought a 20cl bottle of regional champagne that I'll be enjoying when I'll go back to Romania.
All in all, I had an absolutely wonderful trip to Reims, I really enjoyed it and for sure I will come back one day to see all the things I didn't get to see this time. I recommend spending a night in there because one day is definitely not enough to see everything. So here is a list with some objectives that I didn't manage to see during my trip:
- Foujita Chapelle
- Ancien collège de jésuites
- Basillique Saint Nicaise
- Porte Mars
- Musée du Fort de la Pompelle (this one is located outside the city, but you can get there by taking bus number 16).
Thank you for reading this and I hope it was helpful if you ever plan to take a trip to Reims. Have a wonderful day!
