Champagne & Chartres

For the May Day bank holiday weekend, I took the Eurostar with Taffy & Rox (Taffy & Vicki's friend) to the Champagne region of France. We stayed in a town called Reims (pronounced something like Rance, rhymes with dance & France, the way I pronounce them, not the snooty English way). I managed to get first class tickets on the TGV (the French fast train) for cheaper than standard fare. The French train system is a hell of a lot better than the Brits. The seats were large and comfortable (even the standard class ones that I took back to Paris).
We went on a tour of the Mumm cellars (3rd largest producer of champagne) on Saturday afternoon. I took the 1 glass tour/tasting, Taffy had the 2 glass and Rox had the 3 glass. The tour was quite standard, talking through the old way of producing in barrels, to ceramic tile lined concrete vats (when they used midgets to clean the vats(?) It was difficult to tell if she was joking or not) to the current stainless steel variety. They have a Wine Library, where they keep a few bottles of champagne from key vintages (1895, 1911, 1929, 1942 and so on). They are kept in their pre-sediment decanting stage so as to keep them from going off. Only the Mumm Cellarmaster has the key to the library (part of the cellars) and he can go in to sample some of them when he wants. The purpose is so that he can refer back to the taste of the Mumm champagne through the years. I ended up drinking about 1/2 a glass, probably one of the largest volumes of alcohol I have consumed in one sitting and the second largest I have had without food. Rox and Taffy finished off mine as well as theirs and were rather happy as we wandered back into the town centre for dinner. [Taffy was a deal happier than Rox was, which is surprising given that 1) he's a guy, 2) he's bigger than she is and 3) he had 1 glass less than she did. Useless. ;-) ]
Reims is a lot more than just the gateway to the Champagne region. It has a couple of other claims to fame. It is the home of the Cathedrale Notre Dame de Reims, the cathedral where the French kings were crowned. Joan of Arc brought Charles VII here for his coronation. The cathedral has large windows on the upper storey, which provide an amazing amount of light, making it one of the brightest cathedrals I have seen.
Reims is also the town in which the German surrender took place in 1945. Eisenhower had a headquarters set up in a school in Reims and the surrender document was signed there on 7 May 1945. Another signing took place in Berlin a day later that was 'more public'. The room where it happened has been preserved as it was 60 years ago, with maps of Europe showing supply routes, cities & locations of important resources.
While Taffy & Rox went to Epernay on Monday to visit Moet & Chandon for another wine tasting & tour, I went to see Chartres. The Cathedrale Notre Dame de Chartres is described by the Lonely Planet as 'one of the crowning architectural achievements of Western civilisation'. Big call! It marks a turning point in architectural styles to New Gothic and its flying buttresses were some of the first. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is a 'crowning architectural achievement' but its collection of stained glass windows is one of the best I have ever seen. Almost all of them are original, dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries. The collection survived the French Revolution and was removed and put in storage to survive the 2 World Wars. The predominant colour is a beautiful, deep blue called Chartres blue. It was made using cobalt oxide, which was not used much after this period as it was too expensive. The most famous window is called the Blue Virgin, Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere. She's quite ugly! : )
The other famous item in the cathedral is a holy relic, the Virgin Mary's veil. It was apparently worn by Mary. Luckily the chapel in which the relic is exhibited was closed for refurbishment or I may not have been able to stop myself from rolling my eyes and giggling as in the Holy Relic Museum in Istanbul. I bet it's in pristine condition like Abraham's turban too.
Other than the cathedral, Chartres is just a nice little town with old churches and houses scattered through it.
At last count, I was on 13 colds in 12 months almost a year ago. Since then, I have only had a handful: a couple in the UK, one in Canada and then a 4 month stretch from Jan-Apr (winter months) without a cold. The health couldn't be sustained and this week I came down with another cold. I'm quite impressed with myself, though. My system must be getting used to the European germs. I did go to work and spread my 'swine flu' around but I'm sure everyone there has already been exposed to all the stuff I'm just getting now.