We started the day by walking to the city center. We are staying by the train station, about a 15 minute walk away. We saw a big park, so the kids and I went to explore while Joel got us breakfast and found an ATM for some euros. France is one of the countries where it costs money to use the public toilets, which Bennett found out the hard way yesterday. He wanted to go between train rides, which is super frustrating because the trains all have toilets! At the train station, the toilet was 1€ which we didn’t have. He had to wait about 15 minutes until we boarded our train. In general, Bennett also has a tendency to realize he needs to pee after we leave a place with a toilet, so this is just a regular frustration with him.
The park was great. It was so beautiful super tall mature trees, hammocks for anyone to use. The playground equipment was trended towards the more natural esthetic, so it blended in well with the park. To me, this is the way a park should be! It also had a carousel, which we couldn’t pass up. I forgot about France’s beautiful carousels everywhere.
After the park, we shopped in the arcade for a little bit. Then we went to the Cathedrale Norte-Dame de Reims, which is pretty much the only notable sight-seeing olace to visit. It was beautiful, but there was construction happening inside, so it was pretty loud. I didn’t appreciation the luxury of being in London and speaking the same language as the residents, because there, we could read every sign. Here, we can real zero. There was a chapel dedicated to Joan of Arc at the cathedral, but I wasn’t too certain it was for her because it said Joanne D’Arc. Good thing I can Google it.
After the cathedral, we had some lunch and then Joel talked to the tourist info booth. They gave him a map of the champagne cellars and told him we could just walk into each one for a tour and tasting. We attempted to get on the bus to go to the cellars we had booked tours for, as they were about 1.3 miles from where we were, but the bus ticket machine was broken and the line to get tickets was long. Plus, most places shut down from 12-2 for lunch, and we wanted to be at the cellar by 2… so we started walking, hoping to catch a taxi on the way. Well, long story short, that didn’t happen. We ended up walking the whole way there. Like most days of our trip, it was sprinkling on and off. Luckily, it never downpoured, but alternating between a raincoat because of the rain, then taking it off because it was hot and sunny, it was annoying. Not awful, just annoying enough, especially with the kids complaining every 5 minutes about not wanting to walk, and also the uncertainty of not quite knowing where we were going.
The first cellar we visited was Villa Demoiselle. We toured the cute house, that had 5 levels, 2 underground. Caroline loved it. She was in her element, with the fancy staircase, beautiful beds and colorful wallpaper. The champagne was a little rough though…
The second cellar we toured was Pommery, which is a wine we can buy in the states. The cellar tour was cool. Unfortunately they don’t have a guided tour in English, so we were on our own. They’ve made it into an artsy place, dimly lit with lots of art instillations. The kids thought It was spooky and I definitely agreed, although I didn’t tell them that. The wine was bunch better here, which isn’t a surprise if they ship internationally.
After these two places, we attempted to visit three more but struck out. All had full tours for the rest of the day and weren’t offering tastings. So frustrating! I kinda wanted to go back to the tourist info office to tell them that because if anything, they should know.
We were near another cathedral, Basilique Saint-Remi, so we toured it as well. It was a nearly empty church, with maybe 2-3 other visitors inside, and not an employee insight. It also didn’t really have any lights, although the sun outside helped illuminate the inside. The kids thought it was really creepy, and again they were right, although I didn’t tell them that. “It’s fine! See, there’s one other person,” I said to them. “It’s totally fine to be in the church, they want us to visit.” But internally, I also wondered where all the people were. Caroline also had my phone, so the basilique photos are courtesy of her.
So again we tried to find a taxi back to the city center because we were about a mile away from the cathedral. And again, no luck. After 15 minutes or so, joel realized we were walking on a one-way street, with traffic going the opposite direction of where we were walking, which would explain the lack of taxis going our way. That being said, the whole time we were there, with the exception of at the Pommery parking lot, I only saw one taxi that was available to rent. Like, there just weren’t any taxis like the tourist office said there’d be. I honestly feel like I could do a better job of working in that office.
Bennett was getting hungry, as it was about 5:30pm, so we stopped in a tea shop for a rest and a snack. Obviously 5pm is dinner time in MN but most restaurants don’t open for dinner until 7, and when we were getting dinner last night, around 9pm, the restaurant were packed, the shift in meal times will be a challenge. Even when we sat for lunch at 12:30 today, we were maybe the 3rd table in the whole restaurant. By the time we left at 1:30, the place was packed.
The tea shop was super cute and the people who worked there were super nice. We left around 6:30 and took our time walking, knowing restaurants wouldn’t open until after 7:00. We stopped at another carousel, this one was a double decker. We left the kids ride three times, to their delight. I can’t imagine Bennett has many more carousel years left in him, so if he wants to go, he should!
We had dinner at a pub Joel found and ate outside, at Caroline’s request. It got a little chilly, so it probably wasn’t the best idea, but we toughed it out. Dinner was really good. Joel had pork tenderloin, which he said was the best pork he has ever had. I had a great fish and Bennett had what looked to be a plain burger patty and fries, that he said was amazing and finished incredibly quickly. Caroline had the kid’s sausage… which was like a crappy Oscar Meyer wiener. It was kind of a yellow/orange color and the inside was like bologna. She has a bite and wasn’t a fan. Luckily for her, joel and I each had some bread accompany our meal, so she ate that and some fries. I mean, the good thing be about France is we just buy a baguette every morning, stick it in the backpack, and break off chunks for the kids whenever they get hungry. I’m sure that isn’t the way Parisians parent.
When we finished, we started making the 15 minute walk home. We walked to see a statue, near the train station and realized there was a water fountain nearby. This area was a continuation of the park we were in this morning. We didn’t realize how vast it was. This half of the park didn’t have a carousel, but did have some playground equipment. All day the kids has been complaining of how much their feet hurt, and how we should get a taxi, but the second we got to the park, they were running, skipping and dancing everywhere. They were full of energy. The 15 minute walk was probably more like 45 minutes. We were able to see Roman arch, that once marked the entrance to the Reims city center. I was surprised the kids didn’t want to rush to the hotel, knowing they’d get some screentime. I clocked 20k steps today and I’m guessing the kids had more since they never seem to walk in a straight line.
Despite the disappointment of not being able to go to more cellars to do tastings, it ended up being a good day. Even with the complaining, the kids were able to entertain themselves. Caroline got a notepad about the size of a cellphone, so they’ve been pretending it is one. From what I can gather, they have invented a new app called PetTime, with DogTime and CatTime functions, so they’re constantly calling different pets. At one point, Caroline took over the company and deleted the app from Bennett’s phone. Whatever the case, they were pretty entertained. Bennett also picked up two knight figurines. He entertains himself so well when he has little figurines, so he’s been in his own knight fighting world.
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