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Dear readers,
After yesterday's action packed itinerary, today was going to be much more relaxing. We made an early start to the Rue de Rivoli (the street the Louvre is on) to meet our tour group and head out to the towns of Reims and Epernay in the region of Chanpagne. This area is approximately 150kms north east of Paris and took us 2 hours to get to. Being an early start and sitting in a warm and comfortable double decker coach made sleep a fait accompli.
The first stop on the tour was the Mumm champagne cellars - made famous by being the official champagne that is sprayed on the podium at all Formula 1 grand prix races. They showed us around the cellar and gave a detailed explanation of the champagne making process. They showed us some of the bottles used and the old machinery they used to produce champagne. It is an extremely delicate and time consuming process. The final step was a tasting to see what the many months and years of hard labour produces - it was cold and bubbly, and had two varieties, sweet and dry - tres bon. We then boarded the bus for our next stop, the Cathedral of Reims. When we arrived there, the first thing we noticed was that it was actually a bit nicer than Notre Dame. It turned out that this Cathedral was built after Notre Dame and had some new features like over 3000 sculptures and a ceiling height that was 8m taller (that is practically a two storey house). It was also the church where all of France's kings were coronated.
After our visit to the Cathedral, it was time to grab some lunch so we grabbed a couple of baguettes and drinks. Then we had some French vanilla ice cream and macarons - yum yum.
We met up with the group again and headed out to Epernay to see the most famous champagne cellar in the world - Moet & Chandon. We were given a tour through their cellars, much the same as Mumm's and given a tasting at the end. An interesting fact they both mentioned was the length of the underground cellars which was in total just over 25km long. Considering these have been progressively built over the last 200 years, this is quite impressive. Another statistic the guide mentioned was that a bottle of Moet is popped around the world every 2 seconds. Hard to believe but apparently the Americans, Japanese and French love their bubbly.
At this point, we had now seen two of the most famous champagne houses in the world along with a very grand Cathedral. It was time to go home so we boarded our coach for the 2 hour journey back to the capital.
Once we arrived back outside the Louvre, we decided to go in search of a great French restaurant. We ended up stumbling across a little strip that was packed with Parisians and was bustling with people having after work drinks, olives, meat and cheese platters as well as dinner. There were some street performers who were performing incredible moves and acrobatics and keeping the crowds entertained.
We settled in for a few drinks and had a cheese and char-grilled vegetable entree, a seafood risotto and a honey glazed duck and sautéed potato mains. Well fed and exhausted from our tour of the countryside, we made our way back to the hotel to chill out. We watched a few episodes of Jersey Shore and then called it a day. Tomorrow's our last full day in Paris so we will be checking out montmarte and the Sacre Coeur.
Until then, Bonne nuit.
B
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