VENDREDI:
Some how, after spending most of the previous day in dialogue with our toilet, I summoned the courage to drag my sorry ass to the bus and eventually the train station in Verdun. As it had been pouring down with rain for the majority of the week, I can safely say that I didn't own a single item of clothing that wasn't at least slightly damp, but I had chosen, specially for this magical weekend away, the least damp of all my potential outfits. As a result, I could not leave the train station in Verdun for fear of reverting to what has become my natural state of being: soaking wet. So I waited, in a train station that seems to be completely devoid of a heating system for a little over an hour and a half; at which point I was informed that my train had been cancelled and replaced by a bus, which would now be braving traffic, storms and a fair amount of black ice to get me to Metz (where I was meeting Liane, my partner in crime) and it would now be stopping at every single possible little village on the way. Needless to say, I was later than expected. Luckily we were taking a late train to Reims, which, when I finally arrived, gave us a window to seek out food in the soggy world around us. Long story short, I love the guy that sells cookies in Metz. His sandwiches may be terrible, but his cookies are excellent and we always have such a nice chat. It's delightful when someone recognises you in a big city that you don't visit all that often.
So...a short, very wet train ride later and we get to Reims. Of course we get totally lost trying to find the hotel, but we eventually discover it was about 2 minutes away from the train station. Thanks Google Maps. The guy at the reception was lovely. Extremely helpful and probably just glad to have someone to talk to. Our first experience with our tiny but charming little room was a failed attempt to close the bathroom door. I went to pull the door closed and the handle came right out, locking me in what seemed to be an indoor port-a-potty! Luckily Liane was around to help reassemble the door and help me out of my poopy prison. Good bonding moment. We then proceeded to the Glue Pot, a weird combination Oriental/Irish themed bar, and got to know each other a little better.
SAMEDI:
Saturday was a pretty standard tourist day; lots of chatting as we wandered around the city with and sometimes without a map. First up on the list was of course the cathedral, Notre Dame de Reims. Beautiful architecture, incredibly detailed carvings and a really interesting mix of colours and styles of stained glass windows. But, as seems to be the case with most large, touristy cathedrals, it was very dark and a little gloomy.
As we journeyed to other, smaller churches later in the day, Liane and I had an interesting conversation about the difference between churches that are primarily tourist attractions and those that are primarily places of worship. Personally I prefer the latter. They seem more sincere. Although I guess that makes me a bit of a hypocrit, for visiting them as a tourist. Later (as a defense against gale force winds), we visited the cathedral museum, which was much more interesting that anticipated. It housed a number of original carvings from the cathedral that had been replaced by replicas and its own architecture was quite interesting. It was built on the foundation of Roman baths, and in the basement, the ruins and the medieval architecture built over them are still visible and remarkably well preserved.
Now normally I'm not a terribly girly person, but from time to time I like to indulge in girly pursuits. However, things like getting dressed up and going shopping aren't very much fun by yourself. So obviously I was thrilled to have a real live girl to do girly things with. Window shopping turned into actually shopping with a plan to buy clothes for a fancy evening in the future. Flash to the future, we now have tickets to the Metz Opera for sometime in March and I have a burgundy dress and knee high boots (!!!) to wear to dinner and the show. Totally pooped from shopping, we retired to our hotel room after dinner and completely ignoring the plan to sleep early so we wouldnt be tired for our early morning plans, we stayed up until 1 talking. Glorious.
DIMANCHE:
Sunday was the best day of all. Quite possibly the best day I've had since I moved. A couple of unimportant little things happened in the morning, chatting with the reception guy, getting lost on the bus...etc, but let's get right to the point: champagne. It would be practically blasphemous to go to the Champagne region without drinking champagne right? Well we did even better. We went on a tour of the Pommery champagne caves (that's right, caves) and followed that awesomeness with a champagne tasting. The Pommery state is pretty cool even if you don't know what it's sitting on top of. The whole area (just outside of Reims) is teeming with cool art deco architecture. It feels a little bit like the suburbs of Wonderland (you know, where Alice settled and raised her kids). Hard not to get excited about.
But most importantly, the caves. At the Pommery estate, their apparently world famous champagne (don't ask me, I knew nothing about champagne until I took this very informative tour) is made and stored in 20km of Roman caves under the estate. How cool is that? Our adorable little blond tour guide explained to us how champagne is made, what makes Pommery champagne special/different and what different kinds of champagne they produced and the different factors that caused different tastes. Quite interesting, very proud of my french comprehension. Random fact that I liked the most was that each little cave where thousands of bottles of each batch of champagne are individually stored has a name. Not a name like Bob or Harry, but the name of a city. The tour guide explained that Mdm Pommery (the owners wife, who took over the land title and business when her husband died, back when it was very contraversial for a woman to do anything other than be pretty and silent) wanted Pommery champagne to "conquer the world." So every time a major export deal was signed with a city, the city was considered conquered and would get its name on a cave. I was surprised to find such caves named New York, Sydney and Kyoto, among many many others. One ornately fenced off cave (unfortunately nameless) played host to priceless champagnes: champagnes from before each of the World Wars and even a bottle from the Pommery estate's first year. As you can see, I was quite excited by the whole event.
Mdm Pommery also had a great fondness for art, so in addition to using the space for champagne production and storage, they also host an ongoing and ever changing modern art exhibition, at the time I believe the theme was sound. The artwork was incredibly varied, from an entire upside down elephant supported on it's trunk (as me for pictures), to mechanical boots that tapped their toes to a rhythm. Needless to say, the dancing boots were my favourite. Liane prefered the swing with bells on it. Who wouldn't love interactive art?
After the tour, we had a champagne tasting. Normally I'm not a huge fan of champagne, it's always had an unpleasant aftertaste. But what I learned was that actually I'm not a fan of cheap champagne. Pommery champagne was crisp and clean and tart but not overwhelmingly so, sweet but not overwhelmingly so. Completely refreshing, outrageously expensive. A delight to try at least once in my life.
After the tasting, we reluctantly left the estate and wandered around the neighbourhood, had the chance to get lost in the vicinity of the beautiful St. Remy basilica which was conveniently close to a number of bus stops. I must say, despite my lack of photos, St. Remy was my favourite church in Reims. It was quiet, out of the way and did not contain a souvenir penny pressing machine.
That would have been the end of the trip, had it not been for one cool little event on the way home. I've found that general protocol on trains is to keep to yourself and pretend to be reading a book. The girl next to me was watching an incredibly violent but interestingly shot tv show that I could not manage to take my eyes off of. She caught me watching and instead of giving me a dirty look like I was expecting, she got out a second set of headphones and let me watch with her. The cherry on top of a perfect weekend.
