Reims -- the Cathedral and the Champagne

Thursday, October 1 -- It seems too soon to be packing up and leaving Riquewihr, but this is the day we must turn west and drive through the Alsace-Lorraine and Champagne-Adrennes regions of France. We are on our way to a small village, Mauregard, near Charles de Gaulle Airport.  

We finished packing and loaded the car by 9:00 a.m. because we knew a long drive lay ahead.  Google Maps predicts about five hours to the outskirts of Paris via the A4, and we want to stop in Reims to see the cathedral there.

We found Vivienne and did our checkout from the apartment.  I found the bottle bank and we made a significant amount of noise getting rid of green and clear bottle glass of all kinds.  The trash can was out in the garden with a lock on it, but because Thursday was the designated pickup day, it was unlocked.  I filled it up and moved it to the main street of Riquewihr.

Much up and down the stairs but we finally got the car packed and set off, our last departure through the winding alley to the main street and dodging the early morning tourists who had already begun to arrive.  We got some very confusing signals from the Garmin GPS about how to find the A4 to Strasbourg, and maybe it wanted to send us on some secondary roads.  We persevered and eventually found our way to the familiar entrance to the highway.  After that it was basically just cruising along on cruise-control in the morning sunshine, heading north past Strasbourg and on to skirt around Metz. After Metz, we entered an area of broad grain fields that did not look much like France.  The names on the road signs increasingly seemed familiar as the sites of battles in World War One -- Verdun, Argonne,  the Meuse river, and St. Mihiel.  With more time I would have liked to stop and examine the battlefields and memorials from a period just one hundred years ago.

But, Reims beckoned.  We really wanted to see the great cathédrale de Reims, also known as Notre-Dame de Reims -- site where the kings of France were crowned and also scene of a 1429 victory by Joan of Arc.  As it happened, our GPS and Marcia's navigation turned us onto a street that led straight to the front of the cathedral.  We parked a couple blocks away, and walked up in awe of the  three portals laden with statues and statuettes.  

Some kind of renovation was underway, so the central portal and the famous "rose window" dedicated to the Virgin Mary were out of commission. That did not dismay us.  
 
Instead, Marcia noticed the flying buttresses, so close together in this instance.  In Strasbourg, a later cathedral, they were farther apart.  Here they were so close together that some windows on the interior were bricked over to accommodate the spacing.

 
We marveled as well at the Marc Chagall stained glass windows, donated in 1974 to decorate the axis of the apse.  Indeed, this was one of those cathedrals where the medieval stained glass was removed during World War Two and returned after the war by the "Monuments Men." 

In the forecourt stood a horse-mounted statue of Joan of Arc. Quite appropriately, she is looking up at the spires of the magnificent cathedral that she liberated from the English, an act which allowed the Dauphin Charles to be crowned king here in 1429.  

Joan of Arc

 
Well, enough of religion.  It has been a long day, and we're feeling a little dry.  And the home of Taittinger champagne is said to be located nearby atop the ruins of a 13th century Benedictine abbey which are atop a 4th century Roman stone quarry.  That is to say, there's some history here.

Taittinger is one of the last champagne houses to retain its independence and bear the name of its owners.  The Taittinger style is characterized by a high proportion of chardonnay grapes from the Champagne region. With 288 hectares of its own vineyards, Taittinger is a smaller but high quality Champagne house.   

We had no advance reservation but only waited about a half hour for an English-language tour.  The waiting room displayed an artistic array of Taittinger bottles with artist-designed labels from people like Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg.  

Pretty soon we descended, with our guide Nadine, to some 60 feet below ground.  As she explained, the ancient caves keep wines today at about 55 degrees.  It was totally dark except where lights shown on things like the sign commemorating the 1717 visit Peter the Great, Czar of all the Russians, to the Taittinger caves.  There are carvings by monks from the time when the Saint Nicaise Abbey prospered here.  Today the caves are filled with champagne.  The tour finished with a nice tasting of champagne where we got a chance to hear about Nadine's plans for a career in France.


Back on the road, our destination is Mauregard, where we have reserved a couple of rooms in a charming, family-owned and -run hotel in a small village just northwest of Aéroport de Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle. 

However, before we could get there, we had a little adventure.  I had been a bit parsimonious in purchasing fuel at the noontime stop along the superhighway.  As a result, were on fumes and decidedly unlikely to make it to Mauregard as I had planned.  This resulted in a time consuming and stress inducing search for a gas station off the A-4.  We found one, eventually, but it clearly delayed our arrival. 

Les Herbes Folles

Our destination was the Hotel Les Herbes Folles at 1 rue de l'Eglise, 77990 Mauregard, and it is a "find."  Rather than the usual Holiday Inn "light" that you get near airports, this is a modern yet charming French accommodation with two floors of spacious rooms, a restaurant, and all the other amenities. We commandeered one upstairs lounge for a private wine and cheese party before dinner.  And dinner was quite nice.