Our last stop before heading back to England was Reims. We left Orange early in the rain and headed north on our last long leg of the journey. Finn said he was not feeling well and slept a lot of the drive. Around noon, we stopped at a rest area and headed to the restaurant to eat something. While I was paying for the meals, Finn vomited all over the floor across the way from me in the very crowded seating area. Luckily, Craig was nearby and gestured to the attendant that there was a mess to clean up. He whisked Finn outside to the car and got him cleaned up while Evan, Owen and I ate. Actually Owen and Evan didn't eat much because what they had ordered, an andouillette, tasted disgusting. Really disgusting. Here is what we learned later on Wikipedia: "The taste is an acquired one - as it is with all offal - and can be compared to strong, decaying pork sausages. The texture is somewhat rougher than sausages, as the content is roughly cut." That just about sums it up nicely. So they ate Finn's pasta while I ran outside to switch places with Craig so that he could eat. After this adventure, we have all pledged never again to eat in what we call a
"Snarf and Barf"!
Finn was feeling better on the second half of the drive and we didn't have any emergency stops until we arrived in Reims to experience horrible, confusing and insane construction detours at rush hour. Excellent planning, huh? We finally found the hotel after 45 minutes (we had actually passed it twice), found the parking garage and checked in without incident. Finn, Evan and I passed on dinner so Craig and Owen had a date night.
The Hotel Bristol was in a great location and had wonderful views of the street scene, but the street noise was very bad both in the late evening due to the clubs beneath us and also in the early morning due to never-ending street cleaning and unloading of trucks. Also, the plumbing PVC pipes were exposed in the bathroom and we heard every flush of every toilet in the building. Craig and Owen's room was on another side of the building and they had a great night's sleep. Oh, but this hotel had this total old-timey caged lift that fit like two people at a time and was so slow, you could walk to your floor and be in your room before the lift arrived. Very cool though. And it had a shoe shine machine which I have never seen before. This said, Reims is a gorgeous city and we will return probably via train since the train station is accessible pretty much anywhere you are.
We spent the next morning viewing the cathedral, Notre-Dame de Reims, which even the kids enjoyed. Reims is where most of the French kings were crowned and it is spectacular. I have photos from this portion of the trip because I remembered that I had brought my Flip recorder and we took videos and then I am able to snap photos from the videos. Some of the shots are fuzzy and not the greatest lighting, but it works for me. By the way, these Flip recorders are so cool and fairly inexpensive and total no-brainers to use and download the videos onto your computer.
statue of Jeanne d'Arc who attended one of the king's coronations
These windows were created by Chagall and installed in 1974.
beautiful windows with charcoal undertones
shadows on the floor
vaulting,
vaulting,
and more vaulting
front entrance inside
front entrance outside
We took off after doing some souvenir shopping, actually arrived in Calais early enough to catch an earlier ferry than our scheduled one and landed in England without a fuss. The traffic home on Halloween night was horrendous, but at least our headlights were pointed in the right direction. We arrived home safely around 7 PM expecting trick or treaters, but we had NONE. Oh well, more candy for us.
So this is the official end of our French saga. I hope you have enjoyed it.
As I finish this, I am listening to the radio and they are playing "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl which is one of my all-time favorite songs from the 80's (early 90's?) and I remember why I love England because they don't play this stuff in the USA. If you ever need music to download onto an iPod, look up Kirsty MacColl and you will not be disappointed, especially her song "He's on the Beach".
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