Day Trip from Paris to Reims

The churches are walkable from the train station--or at least that's how I got around the city, and my hotel was on the far side of the train ststion. Many major churches in Europe offer English-language audio guides, though I don't specifically remember whether that was the case in Reims. The champagne houses I cannot help with, but I know others on the forum have visited them and will be able to provide advice.

Liza,
Booking a tour really isn't necessary. The Rick Steves France Guide Book has all the information you'll need. Everything that's really worth seeing is within walking distance of the train station. That includes The Cathedral which has a very rich history, The Museum of the Surrender, the Archbishop's Palace, and other places. There are two champagne houses near each other that can be quickly and easily accessed by a local bus. Taittinger and Martel both give tours but reservations are probably a good idea. If you go to googlemaps.com and use the street view you can do a virtual walk about before you ever leave home. Take a bit of experimentation to get the hang of using it, but it sure helps avoid the "lost" feeing when in a new place.

Hi Liza-

We took the train from Paris to Reims last year. The Museum of the Surrender is very close to the train station (5 minute walk). From there we walked to the Cathedral - about 20 minutes. We did a guided tour of Veuve Clicquot which I booked in advance- we were able to walk from the Cathedral - it was a 15 minute walk. We found the sites in Reims (the museum, church, town) enjoyable but quicker to tour than anticipated. Our tour at Veuve was later in the day so we had a lot of time to kill & not much to do. I would consider doing a second champagne tour. I think Rick recommends Mumm in his book, Taittinger is also in town (and walkable). I would check to see if you need to book in advance. Enjoy!

-L

I would book a Champagne cellar tour ahead. Lots of them fill up and it is not necessarily easy to just walk in. We also found the tourist office to have hideous lines for the small amount of information they had to offer. We do our homework and rarely use the tourist offices.

There are trams and buses easily used in Reims if you don't want to walk to the Champagne houses, but the walk is manageable. The Cathedral is not far from the train station and the major Champagne houses are about that far again. Don't miss Basilica St. Remy which is near the Taittinger House -- wonderful. There is also a WWII museum as well as the stunning Cathedral. You can get champagne everywhere.

If you book the TGV early, you can get very cheap tickets for the 45 minute ride to or from Paris.

Thanks everyone! These are all great suggestions. I feel at ease now that I've read through these.

-Liza

Hello!
How far in advance, generally, should I be purchasing "skip the lines" and "reserve your tickets" for tours and entrances to museums, etc? We leave in about 3 weeks and I haven't purchased anything yet.

Thanks,
Liza

If you are talking about Reims, the only thing I would reserve is a Champagne house tour whenever you have your dates. I don't do tours otherwise generally and can't see why you would do one in Reims and the museums and cathedral involve no necessary pre-purchased tickets.

Hi janettravels44 - Thank you! Yes we purchased our train ticket already, so I will go ahead and reserve the Champagne House(s).

As for Paris, I'm assuming, that I should go ahead and book the skip the lines now, since we leave in 3 weeks.

Thanks,
Liza

As for Paris, I'm assuming, that I should go ahead and book the skip
the lines now, since we leave in 3 weeks.

Liza, the advice I've received on this forum for that very same question is to buy the the Paris Museum card (assuming that's what you mean) when you're in Paris. I'm also going to buy the Navigo Découverte card for transportation when we arrive by train at Gare du Nord from Amsterdam.

We were there last August prior to our RS Eastern France tour. This is an easy town to walk but also has a great transit system with bus stops off to your right when you walk out of the station. Check out a map ahead of time to maximize your time and energy and watch the hours things are open - we learned that the hard way with the Museum of Surrender because it closed for lunch. The museum is behind the train station, Mumms is to the left of the station, Tattinger is 15 min. Beyond the cathedral and Martel is about 2 blocks from Tattinger. If you have or can find a RS guidebook, he his section on Reims is pretty good. We did not book ahead, but had no trouble walking in at Tattinger and getting into their English-speaking guided cellar tour. However, I would agree with Janet that the TI by the cathedral was not that helpful. They wanted us to use their computers to book stuff online and yet none of us could get their computers to work. They were nice, just not really helpful. Martel wasn't allowing tours of their cellars when we were there last year, but the manager sat and chatted with us about champagne for a long time. We bought a regular tasting and a top notch tasting at Martel. Caves at Tattinger were amazing.