6 Best Sights in Champagne Country, France

Restored in the 1990s as part of the revitalization of the city, this museum now ranks among the best in France. It takes special pride in its prized Flemish and Dutch collection, with works by Van Dyck, Rubens, and Brueghel. There are also equally impressive paintings, sculptures, and ceramics by Monet, Goya, and Delacroix. The prints and drawings room alone holds 30 pieces by Raphael. Originally established by decree by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1801, the museum moved into its current Belle Époque--style building in the late 19th century.

Laon's art and archaeology museum has a collection of Mediterranean finds from the Bronze Age through the Gallo-Roman era that is second in importance only to that at the Louvre. Other highlights include fine 17th- and 18th-century paintings by celebrated local artists Mathieu Le Nain and Jean-Simon Berthélemy, as well as the chilling effigy of Guillaume de Harcigny, doctor to the insane Charles VI. The Chapelle des Templiers (closed for restoration until 2024) in the garden—a small, octagonal, 12th-century chapel topped by a shallow dome—houses fragments of the cathedral's gable.

One of the few remaining testaments to Beauvais's glorious past, the old Bishop's Palace is now the Musée de l'Oise. Don't miss Thomas Couture's epic canvas depicting the French Revolution, the 14th-century frescoes of instrument-playing sirens on a section of the palace's vaults, or the 1st-century brass Guerrier Gaulois (Gallic Warrior).

Behind an opulent columned facade, the Musée de Picardie, built 1855–67, looks like a pompous offering from the Second Empire. Initial impressions are hardly challenged by the grand staircase lined with marouflaged murals by local-born Puvis de Chavannes, or the Grand Salon hung with huge canvases like Gérôme's 1855 Siècle d'Auguste and Maignan's 1892 La Mort de Carpeaux. One step beyond, though, and you're in a rotunda painted top to bottom in modern minimalist fashion by Sol LeWitt. The basement, notable for its masterly brick vaulting, is filled with subtly lighted archaeological finds and Egyptian artifacts. The ground floor houses 18th- and 19th-century paintings by artists such as Fragonard and Boucher. 

Partly housed in the medieval abbey of St-Léger, the town museum has a varied collection of local archaeological finds and paintings, with fine 19th-century works by Gustave Courbet and Eugène Boudin.

Two blocks southwest of Reims's massive cathedral, this noted museum has an outstanding collection of paintings, which includes no fewer than 27 Corots, as well as Jacques-Louis David's unforgettable Death of Marat (the portrait shows the revolutionary polemicist Jean-Paul Marat stabbed to death in his bath—a deed committed by Charlotte Corday in 1793). It also houses a significant collection of 20th-century art featuring Art Deco, surrealist, and post-1945 abstract pieces. Due to major restorations, the museum will be closed to the public until 2025.