Monday, June 18th (Reims and Epernay Champagne, France)

We missed driving the roads so much so we decided to head to the Champagne region today which was about an hour from our villa. And if you are going to do Champagne, what better way to do it then go all out with Moet & Chandon. At least that was Jobby’s motto. The regular champagne tour (the cellars/caves) included a basic tasting along w/ the price of the tour. Since Jobby knew he would be drinking most of my tasting, he decided to go all out and get the premiere vintage tasting for himself! Dom Perignon or bust! We enjoyed a great tour of the cellars/caves which are located 30 meters directly below the headquarters in Epernay. There are over 28 kilometers of caves holding millions of bottles of champagne. What a site! The caves were amazing and the story behind the champagne was even more intriguing. Putting some math together we realized there is over $15 billion dollars worth of champagne in the cellars. We debated whether we should hide out in the Dom Perignon section overnight and steal a few for a celebration when OB1 arrives.

After the tour was over, we set up for our Premiere tasting in the gardens (everyone else tasted in a boring room J ). They showed us pictures of famous people who had done tastings in the same gardens – most notably Princess Diana. So there we are, in our basic street clothes tasting $150 bottles of champagne (well, Jim was drinking and Carla was barely sipping). The vintages were truly amazing and we had our first tastes of Rose champagne. The vintages were from 2000 and Jobby truly fell in love with them.

With a few glasses of champagne in Jim, we headed to Reims (pronounced Rance – these Frenchies – don’t get it) to view another Notre Dame Cathedral. This one was spectacular in its own way. First, it was nice to be in the small town and not have hoards of tourists touring the cathedral at the same time as you. It was very peaceful. Built between 1211-1311 on the traditional coronation site of the kings of France, this cathedral was probably the favorite of our trip and one of the greatest monuments of Gothic art and architecture we had seen yet. The cathedral is famous for the smiling angel on the façade.

Ahh, another relaxing, fun filled day in Paris. We had to rest up tonight to prepare for the arrival of Matt & Allison Proulx the following morning – now the adventures would REALLY begin (Matt & Allison have never been out of the US before – unless you count Canada!).