Campanile Bonneuil Sur Marne - Petits Carreaux Bonneuil-sur-Marne

... of our stay in Reims was at an art deco brasserie (many buildings in Reims were reconstructed after World War I, and a style of the times was art deco) called Boulingrin. It was suggested to us by a girl we met at the laundromat who had just graduated from Pitt University and was living in Reims teaching English. The meal turned out to be great – foie gras, escargot, steak frites, scallops St-Jacques, tartar, the best mousse au chocolat I’ve ever ...

... for the day would include seeing the cathedral as well as atleast one champagne tasting. After consulting our handy travel books we decided on the Pommery champagne caves and possibly one other. Our goal was to set out around 9:30 am to buy tickets at the station for the 10:25 am train. Well... that didn't quite work out.

The night before was a classmates birthday so we celebrated for a little while with them before heading to a local (within 5 minutes ...

... list I was all ready to go, wondering where they would be taking me. I was like a little child at Christmas when I was told we were off to France to the Champagne region. What a great way to carry on celebrating my birthday --- with lots of sparkles in my glass :)

We effortlessly crossed the channel in our car through the Channel Tunnel Within 35 mins of having driven our car onto the train we were in France. To be fair the ...

... onto the highway was crawling, and continued to crawl for several more minutes once we were on the highway.

We did eventually hit the speed limit and at our second or third toll booth, mom realized one of her wallets was missing. Luckily she had separated her many currencies into different wallets and the one missing was the one with a little bit of Canadian money. Unluckily it also ...

-We drove through Reims on the way back to Maastricht and stopped at the Pommery estate for a tour of its cellars. It felt like we were spelunking in the underground cellars, which are more similar to mining caves, housing over 20 million bottles of champagne. It was even complete with riddling racks, though they don't use that technique anymore. After the tour, we had a tasting, which ended in purchasing four bottles that complete with the Pommery logo straws... weird french people.

I think I might have paid on average 4-7 euros a glass of champagne. This was nothing compared to the 14 euros for a tour of the all fabulous and luxurious Moet cellars.

Kept at a temperature of between 10 and 12°C, champagne goes through a long process before being put on the shelves at your local supermarket.

It was really interesting to see the ...

... and some Parmesan cheese, not quite enough to feel 8 people! One girl thought we should try finding a nearby restaurant and ask to buy food, which didn't happy because there were no restaurants open (in August, everybody is on vacation, even restaurants!). As embarrassingly as it sounds, we basically asked for food from the owner, who was kind enough to give us a basket of tomatoes, a ...

... meeting in Reims, its capital. The famous cathedral of Reims is known for being the location of coronations. I know, "once you've seen one cathedral, you've seen them all!" Yeah you could say that...but I was rather impressed by the "fairly recent" stained glass windows by a foreign designer located in the back of the cathedral.

Reims was just a stop on our tour: a quaint city, not too big but not too small.

... sauce that had mustard, lemon and tarragon. We had a bottle of Viognier white wine that was tres bon (hints of apple, apricots, melon for you wine folks), a mozzarella/tomato salad and desert. They treated our bottle like champagne and brought us a standing bucket with ice to keep it chilled. The French know how to treat a bottle of wine. Marisa had an amazing champagne sorbet - potent with enough bubbly in it that it couldn't completely freeze. I had ...

... showed the other locations of Buffalo Grills. My what a shock, there must've been 100 or more locations in France, a few in Spain, some in Belgium and there may have been a few more in other places. Who knew the French love American meat that much. ;o) After our gourmet American meal we went back to the Etap, watched some French American Idol or "Nouvelle Star" as they call it (it's their own version with cheesy French singers) and went to bed.