🇫🇷 Travel Diary | Stop 13: Reims - The Serene Champagne Capital 🍾✨

🌿 A Town That Feels Like a Park Wandering through Reims feels like stepping into a watercolor painting—wide, tree-lined boulevards, uncrowded squares, and an air of unhurried elegance. The city’s layout gives the surreal sense of "a park built around a town" rather than the other way around. Flower beds spill onto sidewalks, and even the busiest streets hum at a lazy Sunday pace. Perfect for: Leisurely café-sitting (order a café crème and watch trams glide by) Picnics by the cathedral (grab a baguette, local cheese, and of course, champagne) Getting gloriously lost (every corner reveals another Art Deco gem or half-timbered house) ⛪ "Petit Notre-Dame" & Other Treasures With Paris’ Notre-Dame still under scaffolding, Reims’ Notre-Dame Cathedral (a UNESCO site) is the next best thing—and arguably more historically significant: 30+ French kings crowned here (look for the "Smiling Angel" statue—she’s the Mona Lisa of Reims 😇) Stained glass that dances with light (Chagall’s blue masterpieces + medieval rose windows) Free entry (unlike Paris’ €11 fee!) Hidden bonus: The adjacent Palais du Tau (former archbishop’s palace) holds royal coronation robes and the shattered remains of the "Holy Ampulla"—a vial of oil supposedly delivered by a dove for Clovis’ baptism. (Spoiler: It was 9th-century crystal, not divine.) 🥂 Champagne Flânerie Reims runs on three liquids: Rainwater (glistening on cobblestones) River Vesle (a sleepy ribbon through town) Champagne (obviously) Skip the big houses (unless you love crowds) and: Sip at independent growers like Eric Rodez (his Blanc de Noirs tastes like biting into a ripe peach) Hunt for Biscuit Roses de Reims (pink cookies meant for champagne-dunking) at bakeries 🍽️ Dinner with a Side of History At Brasserie Boulingrin (since 1925), order: Pâté en croûte (the crust shatters like cathedral stone) Andouillette sausage (if you dare—it’s... polarizing) A glass of Ruinart (to toast the ghosts of kings) Final Thought: Reims is what happens when history, bubbles, and urban planning collide beautifully. It’s Paris’ chill cousin—all the grandeur, none of the stress. #Reims #SlowTravel #ChampagneDreams