Trip Recap Part 2- Reims, France

So, we woke up in Brussels which was so.hard. considering that at 8 it was like 1 am our time and we had spent the night before sleeping on the airplane.  But we managed, which is a good thing because we had a packed day planned and we still had to figure out how to get out of Brussels.
On my master plan for the day (yes I have to plan everything out), we were supposed to go to Waterloo on our way out of town, then stop by the Orval brewery and finally make it into Reims for our 3:00 tour at Mumm. 
We asked our hotel for a detailed map and instructions out of the city.  Once we got onto the highway, it looked to be pretty easy.  It turns out that even locals have a hard time navigating this town because we reached our 2nd turn- which was a one way the opposite way we were supposed to be going.  Proceeded to make several more wrong turns and ended up right back by the hotel.  It was like deja vu from the day before, except today we were both antsy since we wanted to see things.  After several u-turns and stops to look at our map, we finally made it out to the main road we were looking for.
Since it had taken us so long to get out of the city, we missed Waterloo completely and headed straight for Orval.  It was much nicer to be out of the big city and we were feeling pretty good about our day, except when we started seeing signs for "Bastogne" which was the opposite way we were supposed to be going.  Oops, must have taken a wrong turn at one of the roundabouts!  We finally made it to Orval and it was beautiful, wish we had more time but we did not even have time to stop for lunch if we wanted to make our tour at Mumm.  Got a few pictures though...

We bought a case of Orval and were on our way to Reims.  We found out the it is much easier getting around France than Belgium.  Once we crossed over into France, the road signs were much better and more frequent.  Me made it to Mumm on time and learned all about making champagne.  We have been to wineries and plenty of breweries but making champagne is much more complex.  It was interesting to learn about it, and of course the cellars were very neat.

 

We found our B&B after the tour and walked around the town of Reims.  Unfortunately it was a bank holiday the weekend we were there, so many of the local restaurants were closed, but we still enjoyed the city.

 Our B&B- Les Telliers

The next day was one of my favorite days on the trip.  We drove along the champagne trail and stopped at a few of the villages along the way.  There are so many mom and pop champagne operations in the small cities, it would be impossible to see every one.  Most of them don't spend any money on marketing or anything so you really just have to go to the towns and stop once you see the signs.  Again, many of them were closed but we did stop and have a tasting in a town called "Bouzy" and enjoyed the scenery along the way.  It was so beautiful and exactly how I would imagine the French countryside to be:

We made it back to Reims and toured the two big cathedrals in town: Notre Dame- Reims, and Saint Remi Basilica.  Pictures do not do these places justice either, they were huge and the detail was so amazing.

Notre Dame- Reims

 

Inside Notre Dame

 

St Remi Basilica

 Inside the Basilica

Then it was time for our champagne tour at Pommery.  I enjoyed this tour but the tasting was even better! We got a flight of 5 different champagnes- John and I don't have a champagne pallet at all, but we did blind taste tests and neither one of us could tell a difference between the super expensive "vintage" and the everyday "brut" - they both tasted good to me! 
 

It was a great day in Reims and I would love to go back to the champagne region another time!  The next day, we were off to Bruges with a stop at  Westvleteran Abbey where they supposedly sell the best beer in the world- according to several beer ranking publications.