Ideas for Reims

I don't know what the guidebook suggests. There's the cathedral, Palais du Tau, Fine Arts Museum and Museum of the Surrender. The latter is perhaps not of great interest if you've seen a bunch of other (larger) WWII-related museum. I believe there's a display/museum related to stained glass somewhere in Reims but am not finding anything about it online. Perhaps it was something temporary I learned about from a poster while I was in town. The Foujita Chapel is worth a short stop if you're in the area.

There are some more options here: Crazy Tourist List

When I visited Reims in 2017, the Porte de Mars was invisible behind construction wrapping (it looked like a package ready to be mailed) with no signs of activity. I don't know what its current status is.

The Museum of the Surrender... is perhaps not of great interest if you've seen a bunch of other (larger) WWII-related museum[sic].

If you've seen a bunch of other and larger WWII-related museums, you're probably interested in WWII - and in that case, the site where Germany first surrendered to the Allies could be extremely interesting. We were in Reims in September 2019, and really enjoyed this historical site. It reminded me of the Churchill War Rooms in London without the crowds. The room where the surrender document was signed has been left as it was - with plaques added to the backs of the chairs.

With that said, as much as I enjoyed Reims, if I had to choose between Reims before the tour or Provence at the end, I would go with Provence.

The hotel helped us book a tour at Mumm on the day the tour started. It was nice and different from the champagne house on the tour. We had time to visit the museum of surrender also. (It was a heritage weekend and museums were free.). The night before we saw the light show on the cathedral. Turned out that the light show did not occur the next night due to a lighting problem and it was the last show of the season. We were glad we had seen it.
This was one of my favorite tours.

I love this podcast — Annie and Elyse cover lots of places in France. Here is their episode on Reims.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/join-us-in-france-travel-podcast/id827972274?i=1000306840711

I just lent out my RS France guidebook, so I’ve forgotten what the suggestions were. However, I can tell you how we spent our additional day. We like to arrive a day early for every tour as we are adjusted and better able to absorb the tour from the beginning. After arriving by train, we walked to our hotel and dropped our bags. I’m not sure if I didn’t pay attention, or maybe the guidebook doesn’t mention it, but the Museum of Surrender closes for lunch. We learned that the hard way. We walked back to pedestrian area, did lunch, and then back to the museum. Tried to do Mumm’s, but they were closed that particular day (no explanation). We did the cathedral light show that night and could have done it every night - it’s breath-taking.

Before the tour meet & greet in the late afternoon, we walked to two wineries- we did the cave tour at Tattinger and then did a flight tasting at Martel. They are a few blocks apart, so that was easy. We visited Martel with the RS tour, but when we went on our own we sat and chatted with the manager while we did the tasting - that was memorable. We did the museum by the cathedral in our afternoon free time

We really enjoyed Reims - easy bus system, fun town to wander and great chocolate shops.

The two things I wanted to cover were a champagne house (in my case Mumm's) and the Cathedral. Both are walking distance from the train station in town.

There's a great area for restaurants that starts across the street from the train station. It's got lots of walking space for pedestrians and only a small road for cars.

I always like Roman ruins but, like acraven, I was there May 2017 and the big ruin in the center was covered.

When we were there in September 2019, the Porte de Mars was unwrapped, but the construction in the area prevented us from getting close or even getting a good picture.

I spent one day in Reims this past May. Visited the Surrender Museum, the Cathedral, saw the Porte de Mars, and did a tour and tasting at Taittinger and walked everywhere. It was a full day. I am a WW2 buff, so I particularly enjoyed the museum. Alternately, if you want to see the grand cru vineyards and visit where champagne is made (versus seeing bottle riddling/storage in the champagne cellars of Reims) you could spend the day in nearby Epernay along the L'Avenue de Champagne in the morning and then do a half-day tour in the afternoon. We did that also, the latter with Ay Champagne Experience, which I would recommend. Both Reims and Epernay are worth a visit.

The basilica is very near Martel, so not far from Tattinger either. I liked it more than the cathedral.

You could take the TER train to Epernay, pretty town where the modern HQs are for all the champagne houses. Mercier has a fun tour (and tastings of course).

Basilica St. Remy is very much worth a visit and as noted above is quite near the Taittinger Champagne house which is where we toured the cellars. That was also excellent.