Reims and Paris, Sept. 12-17

After the 2 hour bus/train trip from Pont a Bar, we stopped in at the Riems tourist office, booked a room for two nights and headed out onto the streets.
A brief word about the French tourist offices ... WONDERFUL!! The employees usually speak at least a little English, will help you book a place to stay, making the phone call for you after consulting their exhaustive list of available rooms, provide you with maps and information and are just generally very helpful. It makes traveling in France very easy.
Reims, along with Epernay, are the champaign headquarters of France and we wanted to tour some of the cellars but the only ones available for visits without reservations are the big houses like Mumms. We'd rather visit the smaller houses and since we'll be heading through here next spring we decided to leave the tasting til next year.
We did, however, visit Reims fabulous cathedral. Cathy Jo says it was her favorite gothic church of the summer; and we visited a few, as you know.

It has some fantastic stained glass windows and the carving around the inside of the entrance doors is amazing.

Sunday we had a 45 minute ride on France's fast train, the TGV, to Paris for three days of food and fun before we caught our flight home. We must have walked a million miles and had some great meals. We also had a great location for our room, right on the Rue de Lyon, just steps from the Bastille Monument. When we were here three years ago I took some pics of the Bastille but the weather was cloudy and grey. Not this time.

And what would a visit to Paris be without at least one picture of the Tower.

The Tour Eiffel from the Tuilleries and the Louvre.
Wednesday morning early we caught the Air France bus to the airport. About 20 hours later we landed in Los Angeles. This summers adventure was done.