Rheims, France

Bonjour!

On the way to Rheims, the champagne region, we learned a lesson about Joan of Arc. Surprisingly, this was one saint that Kristen hadn’t researched before so, of course, she was intrigued. In short, young Joan hears three saints telling her to lead an army and defeat several troops so that a king could be coronated in the Notre Dame cathedral in Reims. At first, she didn’t have much luck trying to convince higher authorities of this task but eventually she convinced them that divine authority is telling her to do this..... so she does, but after the king is crowned, she gets greedy and wants to continue fighting. After some time Joan gets caught and is brought to Rouen where she is tricked into signing a document and is later burned at the stake. If you are interested, juicier details can be provided when Kristen gets back.

Aside from Monica teaching us about Rheims and Joan of Arc, we also got to experience our first train with the compartment of 8 seats - 4 each side facing each other. That was pretty neat - all our trains up to this point had been regular train cars with 2 seats, an aisle, and 2 more seats. It’s the little things sometimes that get us excited...moving on:

Salut! We got to clink our champagne glasses several times towards the end of our Veuve Cliquot champagne tour. We were lucky to go underground into the chalk cellars to see the history and making of some of the best champagne in the world... just one step below Dom (or so the French say). We got the skinny on which years were the best and vice versa. 2008, not a good year. 2004, drink it up! Matt’s idea is to buy many bottles when we get back. Since the vintage champagnes age incredibly well we will drink some every five years on our anniversary. Each year will get better and better!

We had fun exploring the downtown area in Reims. We ate the best dessert in France, crepes and creme brule. We also got to see the impressive Saint Remi Cathedral and the part of town where 2 people once lived that inspired Disney to write about Quasimodo and Esmerelda in Hunchback of Notre Dame.

On our last night we heard out our hotel window a bunch of chanting and singing. It sounded like a riot breaking out so, of course, Matt was brave and went out to see what the racket was. He thought it was probably some soccer fans cheering for their team but when he rounded the corner onto the main street he saw a bunch of teenagers with orange cones on their heads climbing up one of the angel statues in the center of town. Weird... Since no one spoke English we still don’t know what the orange cone protest was all about.

We are heading into France’s capital city tomorrow and we are excited to see some of the sites that we have seen on tv and in pictures many times before. Au Revior!