France Summer Road Trip | Reims

Finally I am concluding our France roadtrip.  This will be the second last post on our trip.  Thanks for following me so far!  

Finally after 3 full days of fun, we left on a Disney high, driving towards the champagne region of France.  It was about a 2h drive to Reims, which is the main city in this region.  I booked an apartment in a quieter neighbourhood which faces a basketball court where we saw the local kids play.  There was also a Carrefour 5 minutes away - handy!  

Checking in.  The garage that came with it was pretty unforgettable.  The old apartment block has garages but they were extremely tiny and the drive up the spiral pavement was pretty nerve wrecking.  I had to come out and guide K in maneuvering our car, or else I'm pretty sure we would be scratching it on the sides.  It was really nail biting.  By the time we brought our luggage out and went into the apartment, which by the way was really beautiful and well furnished, K said we have to take public transport for the next 1.5 days we were there because it was simply too stressful to bring the car out and then back in.  I agreed.  I wouldn't be able to handle that myself either.

The owner who waited patiently for us to travel from Disneyland was a lovely French lady in her 60s who didn't speak much English.  It was a lot of hand signs/gestures and a few attempts at Google Translate.  Seriously to think that I did take basic French lessons for quite some time, and I've conveniently forgotten even the most basic words - duh.  We decided to take it slow that  night and stay in for a takeaway dinner.  Looking through Deliveroo, the most "comfort" food that we could recognise was KFC (K is a massive fan of their hot wings!).  I figured I had to do a laundry load that night too, since we were checking out two days later and I needed time for the clothes to dry.

Reims Cathedrale Opera

The next morning we started our day by taking the tram to the city centre and visited the grand Cathedrale Opera.  We were blown away by the size of this cathedral.  We went inside and the kids ran amok as usual, amongst the pews.  The stained glass was beautiful and K lighted a candle too, out of respect and also to give thanks for such a smooth trip thus far.  Took quite a few photos here.

Look at the size.  I couldn't fit everything into the photo, just the facade.

Gabriel looked so dirty here!  You wouldn't imagine but the kids were running around chasing each other on this pavement, at times sitting and rolling on the ground OMG

 

We had lunch at another familiar place - PAUL, before setting off for our first champagne tour!  We took the advice of the tourism office to visit the Pommery champagne house that afternoon.  Too bad, Veuve Cliquot was closed that day.  See most champagne houses require a prebooking of their tours but Pommery is probably the only one that does not require any, because you do the walking tour by yourself.  You can do the tour in their underground cellar with the help of an audio guide or a leaflet.  Silly us, we actually chose the leaflet.  Which was pretty useless in the dark underground.  Why is it an option?

 

 

The bus stopped at the gates of this sprawling estate

Beautiful place

The entrance to the house

Bravely entering the cellar

Excited at seeing the steps, not knowing what's to come

Underground cellar

Almost impossible to read our leaflet

Bottles of champagne

Both refusing the climb back up the stairs.  Help!

It was 106 steps down and the kids were scared of this deep, dark place.  Izzy kept asking us where the dragon was, and Gabriel kept crying and begging me to carry him.  Izzy too, kept asking K to carry her.  Poor us, we literally walked through the cellar, kids in arms, without looking too much at what was around us.  Finally we emerged from the same wooden doors, still with two kids in our arms, ready for our complimentary glass of champagne and sit down for a break.  The waiter was also kind enough to pour the kids some grape juice, and they were so happy to be able to "cheers" with us.  Cheers, cheers!

The big wooden doors

Mmm let me smell it

Let me taste it

Let me finish it!

Baby shower ideas

Finally after the tour we went back to the city centre and K wanted to drop by Carrefour on the way home to prepare a home cooked dinner that evening. 

Reims city centre

Kids were exhausted.  So were we.

We saw many randomly placed Covid testing tents throughout our trip