Driving back to Paris required a few detours to make the best of our weekend: Reims and the Mumm champagne cellar. I managed to stay awake for a bit of the drive, and I saw a stork! The significance of this is that the stork is the symbol of Alsace and they're endangered.
The Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims is where 25 of the kings of France were coronated (only a few exceptions). And so the decoration is a bit unusual. Usually, the back wall of a cathedral - which you see when you're about to walk out the door - is fairly empty. But in Reims, the back wall is covered with statues. The enormity of cathedral decoration always stuns me, but this was an entire wall of sculpture.
But there's always an "unfortunately": Unfortunately, a lot of this cathedral was damaged during wars and revolutions, and it's still being restored. Fortunately, several of the destroyed stained-glass windows have been replaced by contemporary pieces. Most recently, in the 1960s Marc Chagall did a set of 3 windows which are amazing and blue.
Following that, and another short ride, we arrived at the Mumm Champagne Cellar. Quite a lovely place...above ground. It's the miles (kilomètres) of underground tunnels that freaked me out. The tour was very interesting, hearing about where the grapes are grown, which ones are used to make the champagne, how long it has to stay underground until it can be sold, and lots of other details that I can't remember. And afterwards we tasted the champagne. I opted for the sweet version, which just has more added sugar than the dry.
Cheers to Paris! And the rest of our drive back to the city...
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