Early morning, we had a scheduled tour for the champagne region of France. Obviously this is where champagne is from and it can only be called champagne when it comes from this region. We used the same company as we did for Versailles. Champagne / rheims region is a few hours from paris and we were there by 10. Our first tour was at Mumm, where we got a tour, walk through the cellar and a taste of their bubbly. We then visited a church, that was built 1200-1300s and it was bombed in WW1. This church is slightly smaller then Notre Dame in Paris, it was interesting to walk through, pray and hear its history. Few interesting tidbits
- Rockefeller funded to remodel the church and they named a big street after him
- Some mayor was beheaded there by his people and Im assuming clergy, for some stupid reason. Another silly religious conundrum, Jesus taught love, peace, but it turns to war and beheadings and the people don't see the problem. Its easy to see how people from the first centuries bought in (no science, ignorance, fear of losing your head), but modern educated people, what excuse do they have? Question everything!!
- Hell is depicted as flames bc france is a colder climate, but in Egypt hell was depicted as ice, bc of the hot climate there (guess flames dont scare the masses). Why is no one calling bullshit on this? We grabbed Chinese for lunch, polished off a bottle of wine and jumped back on the bus (BTW another great dining experience, all foreign food we've had was the best!)
The second phase was Moet | Chandon, which is where they make Dom Perignon, this was a way more impressive joint, nicer buildings, people and environment. One of the Moets was a town mayor, which I thought was a good biz move on his part as he started slinging Moet across the world. Napoleon was also a big customer and visited the house of Moet a few times, ordering 300 Liters of champagne, gangster! The cellars here were 28km, holy champagne. Interestingly, not every year gets a batch. For example. FOr example 2005 didn't have a harvest. Touring Dom P caves was neat, one storage "closet" had a 1 mil worth of of bottles, someone should heist that! Ride back to Paris was chill and were home before 730. We decided to skip out on the Louvre and go back to the shady Straussberg alley for Indian food. Part of the entertainment was watching these guys harass the walkers by to eat there, moving tables to create blockages and getting into people faces, while explaining the menu. Tomorrow we leave :(
(Come back for Pictures, they are coming when I return home)
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