France
Reims
A cathedral where the kings of France were crowned, above kilometres of champagne cellars in chalk.
The cathedral holds the memory of every king crowned within its walls, and the glass alone — Chagall's blue windows in the apse among it — justifies the journey. Below the streets, kilometres of chalk galleries hold millions of bottles of champagne maturing in cool, still darkness. Reims, in France's Champagne, runs on two levels: the sacred above, the sparkling below.
The Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame, begun in 1211, is where the kings of France were crowned for six centuries, from Louis VIII to Charles X in 1825; its west front is crowded with sculpture, the Smiling Angel among the figures, and it survived the shelling of 1914–18 to be restored, with Chagall's windows added to the axial chapel in 1974. The city that was rebuilt after that war is the other Reims — Art Deco façades and halls that give the centre a 1920s glamour beside the Gothic. And beneath it all are the crayères, the chalk pits quarried since Roman times and turned into cellars by the champagne houses — Veuve Clicquot, Taittinger, Mumm, Ruinart, Pommery — whose tours descend into the galleries where the bottles rest and end with a glass. The pink biscuit of Reims, twice-baked and dry, is made to be dunked in it.
Solo
The cathedral in morning light, the Chagall windows glowing, the Smiling Angel on the west front — then down into the chalk cellars of one of the big houses. Reims compresses consecration and celebration into a single city.
Couple
A cellar tour, lunch in the Art Deco centre, then the cathedral as the afternoon light fills the nave. The evening can be dinner with a bottle out of the galleries you walked through that morning.
Friends
The cellar tours are comparative tastings built into the landscape — visit two houses, compare styles, argue about preferences. The city has the restaurants and bars to carry the argument into the evening.
- The kings of France were crowned in the cathedral for six centuries — the glass alone, Chagall's windows included, justifies the visit.
- Kilometres of champagne cellars run beneath the city in old chalk quarries — millions of bottles ageing in cool darkness, open by tour.
- The Smiling Angel on the cathedral's west front has come through wars and restorations — its expression endures.
- Art Deco architecture from the reconstruction after the First World War gives the centre a 1920s glamour alongside the Gothic.
A champagne cellar tour through the chalk galleries, finished with a coupe of the house's own back at street level.
The pink biscuit of Reims — twice-baked, dry and crunchy — made for dunking into that glass.
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