Tip's Included: A Family of 6: Reims- Day 1

We woke up Sunday morning and after breakfast and a slight “emergency” (locking our passports and my jewelry in the hotel safe and not being able to unlock it) we took a cab to the train station. We had been warned that the train station is where a lot of theft takes place so I had the death grip on our bags. Definitely some sketchy people were there along with police with machine guns. Not my favorite place to be so far! The train ride to Reims (Champagne region) was about an hour and a half. I loved looking out the windows at the countryside at all the little towns with red roofs. You could see a chapel with a huge steeple in all of them. Wish that we could have gone to explore each and every one of them.

We made it to Reims and it was a short walk to our hotel. We stayed in another great hotel and it was right in the middle of the old downtown. Mark and I immediately set out to explore the city. It was like a ghost town as every store and most every restaurant are closed on Sundays. We walked about 10 minutes and as we rounded the corner I saw the most unbelievable structure I have ever laid my eyes on- The Cathedral of Reims. Notre Dame doesn’t hold a candle to this place. It was built over 800 years ago (which that in itself was hard to imagine- building something that large and that grand) and it was literally spectacular! Your eyes can’t see everything. The ornateness of every detail is utterly indescribable. We walked in and seeing the vastness and beauty of it all took my breath away and my eyes filled with tears. I have never seen anything like it! The pictures do not do it justice.

Anyways, we spent about an hour there and then it was getting dark so we made a stop in a little champagne shop and bought a couple of bottles and headed back to our hotel. We found a random restaurant that was open and ordered some pizza- it was fair. Mark and I had some champagne in our room and then called it a night. Definitely looking forward to tomorrow! :)