Bonjour. Has anyone been to this area. Any ideas of two day itinerary. We will be leaving Alsace and driving to Paris. It will be my husband's birthday in Champagne. We are more interested in wine and cheese than museums et al..... Merci!!

most of the major producers offer tours of their facilities....i have only done moet and chandon, which was very interesting...good food ...you do know that this area really isn't on the road to paris from alsace??

Here is a link to the place we stayed in June 2002 for our anniversary. It is right outside of Reims - 5 min to the city center. It has an excellent restaurant and indoor swimming pool. There are many champagne places to tour in the city -- we did the Piper Heidseck which I would highly recommend.

http://www.assiettechampenoise.com/

Reims is right off one of the main autoroutes from Alsace to Paris.

Be sure to see the wonderful cathedral in Rheims. A good way to look at the front is to sit at the champagne tasting room just across the square. If you are planning a celebratory meal for your husband's birthday, Les Crayères gets very high marks, both as a restaurant and as a place to stay. Our hotel was east of Rheims, the Château de Fère en Tardenois, in the town of the same name.

I recommend visiting the Reims Cathedral. Don't miss the stained glass by Marc Chagall. Also in Reims are the Taitinger and Maison de Pommery Champagne houses.

We enjoyed dining at Boyer les Crayeres, which is to die for. It consistently receives high marks. In this month's issue of Conde Nast Traveler, it is rated one of the top three restaurants -- in all of Europe!

Woody

Many of the champagne facilities which offer tours are actually in eparnay - not far off the highway - I think it took about 30 minutes to get there. We also did Moet et Chandon and the tour was quite interesting. My disappointment was that they offered for sale only the less expansive wines - I wanted to bring home a bottle of Dom Perignon on the cheap but it wasn;t for sale.

A very good website for travel to Reims is http://www.ville-reims.com/ There's a tourist guide you can download from there with hotels, restaurants, etc.

This link has a listing of the champagne houses that do tours
http://www.umc.fr/traduction/english...ommaire_gb.htm

and so does this one
http://www.tourisme.fr/reims/e_reims3.htm

We visited Veuve-Clicquot, reservations are necessary for this one but not all of them so be sure to check before hand if you want to do a particular house.

And as suggested above, do not miss the cathedral in Reims, it is quite impressive!

We did the tour at Mumms in Reims and really enjoyed it. The champagne to buy there and bring back home is the Mumm de Cramant. It is only sold in the Paris/Champagne area (not elsewhere in France, nor elsewhere in the US, except at a few exclusive restaurants). It costs about 35 to 40 Euro a bottle and is fantastic.

Have a great trip.

John H.

Merci. Thank you all of you. Your replies are GREAT!!! Budman, hurrah, I love the assiettechampenoise and have e-mailed for reservations. Perfect spot. And, the web sites Kristi are a great help. And you all are very sophisticated, savvy travelers - If we are unable to spring for Les Crayeres, can we stop for a cocktail (or glass of bubbly). Karen Brown's book says it is one of the top hotels of the...world!!! And, mais oui, we will go see the Cathedral and basilica. Again, thank you.

P.S. Underhill, I just went to your hotel Fere en Tardenois web sit. What a beautiful hotel and location. Thank you.

The Château de Fere is about a half hour's drive from Rheims through pretty countryside, including sunflowers and windmills (yes!). We even found a tiny American cemetery in the middle of a field, carefully tended by locals.