Mercure Parc Des Expositions Reims

... were walking out with carts full of Cases of wine, not to mention all the cheese, fois gras, ham, mushrooms, and other french goodies that were up for grabs. We spent a piddly 5 hours drinking wine, and now have a much better "education" of French wine. But after a couple hours, food was definitely in order. Istead of opting for the 9 euro fois gras sandwich, we got the pate en croute, which we soon found out is not supposed to be eaten ...

... are or what the lessons teach, but the sheer enormity of the structure and the beauty of the art gives me the same sense of awe and humility that the stories themselves are supposed to convey in the first place.

In the Notre Dame de Reims, there is also one small gem of modern art. Stained glass windows from the Russian-French artist, Marc Chagall, were installed in the axis of the cathedral’s apse in 1974, and they added an almost dreamy ...

... and waited for about 10 minutes before the tour started. One of the amazing parts about the Pommery is that they not only house champagne in their cellars (or 'caves') but art is also displayed. While we were there a more modern artists had displays in many of the corridors as well as the cellars including a dress designed by the designer of the mini skirt and a race-car suspended from the ceiling.

Originally the caves were minbed for chalk that was used ...

... 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 ...

... on. It was already getting quite late in the day considering we still had more than five hours of driving ahead of us. We stopped only for food and in Rheims to check out the cathedral. We had planned to make a few trips along the route but we had also planned on being out of Paris a lot earlier in the day, and I have to work tomorrow, so we didn't get to have much fun driving through France.

-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.

... trip out of Reims since we started off with the car pointed in the opposite (wrong) direction and hence had to navigate a more complex route which was interrupted (quelle surprise!) by roadworks. We had planned to visit a couple of champagne houses on the way back but couldn't find them so headed back "home" to Parva Domus then walked down the road to Moet et Chandon to see if we could do a cellar tour. Although it ...

I was pretty excited this morning when I got up.  I thought, "Rachel, today you will be truly become a part of French society, you will pick up your bank card and check book!"  So I whistled a happy tune,  hopped in the shower, ate my breakfast, and headed into town.   I walked in the bank, waived my hand and gave a friendly "Bonjour!" to my banker, when the cloud of ...

... English and sometimes in French and I sure that we both managed to understand the general gist of the whole conversation. It was very satisfying to have such a pleasant casual conversation with a local and quite contrary to the stuffy standoffishness that most that I have encountered have suggested of the local community. In fact I have found everyone to be very friendly and open - maybe its the kids, they are excellent conversation starters. The kids loved bus ride ...

... was the tourism office. When I entered it to look for a map in English, the kind receiptionist gave me a map in Chinese! I was really striken. Maybe only Chinese went to visit this small and quiet city. Not only in the central city, Jeanne d'Arc's name could be seen everywhere in this city . I did not know where her name was more, here or in Orlean. But one thing was ...