Reims; Sunday, 14 April, 2024

Another quick breakfast a speedy checkout from the hotel and I headed over the road to pick up the course of the canal that runs through this part of the city. The canal didn’t appear to be used that much by shipping any longer, but the towpath was busy with joggers and cyclists. At times the local river runs alongside the towpath creating a pleasant small island free of vehicles between the two bodies of water.

I left the canal close to the Basilica of St Remi which was the main aim of my walk, though it turned out that I’d timed it really badly as I arrived just as the 11:15 service was about to commence and tourist visits were being stopped, so I had a quick, non photographic, look around the inside before heading out to look around the outside of this large complex that included both the chuch and an abbey, the latter which now houses an ecclesiastical museum.

From St Remi I headed back in towards the centre of town, taking in the Opera area, before heading over to the main street by the Fontaine Subé which is home to a large number of restaurants to have an early lunch.

Lunch completed I continued on my walk up to the park areas near the station to take in the only other reminder of the Roman past of the city – the remains of the Porte de Mars, though at the time of visiting a large part of the arch was under scaffolding as it was undergoing restoration.

From the arch it was about a 10 minute walk to my next stop of the day, the chateaux and caves of G. H. Mumm to go on a Champagne Cellar tour and tasting. The tour consists of about an hour down in the cellars which stretch for kilometers in all directions and are still used for housing all of the production of the house, including the turning of the bottles, which whilst mechanised for most production, is still carried out by hand on thousands of bottles a day. After the tour through the cellar it of course ends with a tasting of the finished product.

With a glass of champagne under my belt I left the chateaux and headed back into town, to have a bit more of a wander around the city centre, taking in the almost hidden Jardin Le Vergeur just of the Place du Forum. After taking in the garden I headed back onto the square to chase down the champagne with a pint of beer and a light snack to wile away the last few minutes of my time in Reims.

From the Place du Forum I headed back over to Reims station to catch my train back into Paris. When I’d booked I’d deliberately left quite a bit of time between the train arriving back from Reims and my Eurostar back to London, but it turned out that I needn’t of worried as my TGV arrived back into Paris spot on time, giving me 90 minutes to spare to get from Gare de l’Est to Gare du Nord before checkin for my train back to the UK even opened, so I needed to find something to do to fill the 90 minutes up.

In the end I decided to hop on the metro out to Trocadéro to take in the view across the Eiffel Tower, you know just to prove I’d been to Paris. Then it was back on the metro over to Gare du Nord and the less than efficient checkin, immigration and security process to complete my journey back to the UK.