Highlights
- Explore Reims’ rich architecture with an art history graduate as your guide
- Taste champagne with a wine professional
- Get the city’s best addresses (for food and gifts) by a local
- Start at 11 AM, break for lunch, and finish around 4 PM
Description
9:45 or 13:45: Notre-Dame de Reims, a World Heritage-listed Gothic cathedral
1/Western Façade and its wonderful sculptures. I provide you binoculars to see the highest ones (satiric and naughty ones that the bishop was not supposed to see).
2/ Climb the towers (optional). If you feel brave enough to climb 250 steps up narrow Gothic staircases, you won’t regret it; no hunchback up there but some hidden gargoyles, a wonderful panorama and great pictures to take.
3/Inside the cathedral. Admire the 38-meter-high vault, exceptionally large by Gothic standards, and the modern and medieval stained-glass windows.
11.00 or 15.00 Andrew Carnegie’s Art-Deco library
WWI left Reims almost completely destroyed, as the front line was less than 2 km from the city. In this context, American steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie promised the city a wonderful public library a few weeks before he died in 1919. Ten years passed, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching fulfilled this promise, hiring the best artists and providing them with an unlimited budget. A monumental square pendant chandelier, noble woods, mosaics, huge modern-style stained-glass windows, and gilded bronzes create a unique atmosphere (somewhere between Agatha Christie and Scott Fitzgerald).
11:30 or 15:30: Le Vergeur Renaissance hotel
My hidden gem, forgotten by almost all the city's guides (which is a shame). Imagine a preserved Renaissance estate with gardens and a manor in the very heart of the city, behind fences but accessible to the public. The manor has a lovely structure: its half-timbered exterior façade is definitely medieval, while the inner façade and its bas-reliefs definitely belong to the Renaissance. The interior can be visited (for an additional fee).
12.00 or 16.00 Champagne tasting
Finish your tour in a fancy 1900s-style underground cellar to taste our most distinguished sparkling white wine. No big brands here — we are a couple of streets from the very center and its mass-marketed bottles. We shall taste three champagnes: one for each of the three major grapes used to produce them! This will serve as our Ariadne's thread to understand this wine, the way it is made, the people who make it, and the place where it is made…
Includes
Guided visit to Notre-Dame Cathedral, Carnegie Library, Place Royale, and the Renaissance estate Hotel Le Vergeur
Tasting of three champagnes: one glass of each for all participants
Excludes
Food and snacks
Access to the cathedral's towers (extra fee 9 €/participant)
Access to the Hotel Le Vergeur's interior (extra fee 9€/participant)
Important Information
- We can meet at the train station or at the cathedral's forecourt. On the way to the cathedral there are many very nice buildings to see
Easy cancellation
Cancel up to 24 hours in advance for a full refund
