I decided to head to Rimes today.

There’s 6 direct trains every day at a cost of 27 Euros and the trip lasts for an hour and a half. Of course, as it’s a virtual tour, I’m going first class. Really, there’s no need for train travel on this virtual tour in all honesty, so I go directly to the first stop (hit Play on YouTube) and go and sample some champagne.

I find out that this city is the city known for crowning all of its kings in history (except a couple of them). They all were crowned at the cathedral which is a UNESCO site.

The cathedral is enormous overlooking the square where the Christmas Market stalls have now been installed so I stop to have a “Vin Chaud” to contemplate which Champagne House I’d visit first. There’s so many of them to visit.

I think about Champagne as I’m sitting on my backside watching YouTube sipping my vin chaud and think that in Australia we call it “sparkling wine” because we can’t use brand names for Australian wines of another country’s region.

Truth be told, I thought the Champagne tours would be like Australia where you can see the actual vineyards and the chateaus, go in and see the production and have some tastings. A day out at the vineyards that you can walk through and pick grapes. Nope, they don’t that in France apparently (only some exploring this as another concept as the wine industry in France gets a shakeup due to a huge decrease in red wine consumption but that’s a story for another day).

Here, you can’t visit the vineyards as they’re out of town but you take a tour of the House of Champagne and the caves beneath them and the city that hold the champagne stores (and were hideouts for the locals from the Germans in the world wars).

While I sip le vin chaude (pretend sip, I’m actually drinking an Australian Tyrrell’s Pinot Noir in my pyjamas on the sofa), I decide to go to Lanson for no other reason other than I’ve never heard of this champagne brand. Around exact time I pack my things up, I hear a “ding” of the cable tram that is around the city.

Am I in Melbourne?!

Imagine my surprise when I see it’s EXACTLY THE SAME CLASS-E TRAMS WE HAVE IN MELBOURNE!

What the? I do a double take and find out that yes, they are the Bombardier/Alston trams that were provided to Melbourne too.

Ah, reminds me of home….

I visit the House of Lanson Champagne and it turns out they do have a vineyard in the city. A tiny one out the back that still provides champagne even though it’s 60 years old.

While sipping on champagne (really, I was sipping for real on Pinot Noir), I contemplated these miles of tunnels under Rimes. You could get lost in them. The entire city of Rimes is all hollow underground with caves filled with champagne.

This thought makes me smile.

I was calling the city Reeeems until I was corrected by the tour guide. It’s pronounced like Rahms.

Ok, lesson learned. The French always correct your pronunciation.

After the champagne tasting I walk (surf YouTube) around the city admiring the Roman ruins of the Porte de Mars.

I had some time in the late afternoon (before the husband returns home from work) to head into the Art Deco building of the Carnegie Library in the city.

“Carnegie Library?!” I thought to myself. “Say what?!”

Well it turns out that there’s an interesting history of Dale Carnegie. He grew up poor but became rich in the steel industry thanks to the libraries opened by Colonel Johnson making them free to all working boys. In return for this, when Carnegie became rich and successful, he opened 3500 libraries around the world that are FREE for the public to access and one of them is in Rimes.

(For the record, I had no idea about the Carnegie Libraries which then set me off into a rabbit warren chase. These libraries I guess were the equivalent of the Mechanics Institutes – which I’ve written about extensively in this blog – that were started in Scotland and were created around the world during the Industrial Revolution).

After the glorious art deco Carnegie library it was time for a quiet cafe and taste of the iconic pink biscuits that the city is known for. The “Biscuits Roses de Reims”. The Maison Fossier has been making these since 1756.

I dunked mine in a glass of champagne and sucked the champagne from it. So sweet and delicious. Much like dunking a Tim Tam in coffee.

Maybe when I get back home to Australia, (after the end of this video), I can have a go at making them here in my kitchen in Melbourne.

Where in earth do I find potato starch?!

That’s it for my virtual day tour of Reims.

If you’re wondering where to next, I board the SNCF and head south towards Dijon. I’m going to find out more about this place that is named after the mustard I like to add as a side to grilled meats.

On y va!