(Reims, France)

The mysterious “City A” referenced in my previous post is Paris! However, upon arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport, I immediately caught a train to the historic city of Reims in the French region of Champagne.

I briefly considered spending some time in Paris, as it is unquestionably one of the great cities of Europe.   However, I have visited Paris before and my wife would like to visit “La Ville-Lumière” (the City of Light) together with me someday. With August also being one of the worst times of year to visit Paris, I thought it made sense to bypass it for now.  I also have a feeling that I will have an opportunity to visit Paris again soon!

Instead of Paris, I am in the less intimidating city of Reims for two nights.  I have never been here before but I do know that it is known as, among other things, the home of true champagne. There are many famous champagne houses here and I will be touring a couple of them tomorrow.  I am especially looking forward to visiting the caves deep underground.  I’ll be reporting on my champagne tours (including the tastings) in my next post.

My main focus today was supposed to be on fighting the jet lag and acclimatizing myself to European time.  Alas, there has been a luggage snag.  My backpack was partially open (and damaged) when it arrived on the luggage carousel in Paris…and some stuff was missing from the opened compartment.  I will need to do some shopping in order to replace the missing/damaged items.  It’s certainly an inconvenience but it could have been a lot worse.

I suppose that I have had quite a few challenges already on this trip.  I intended to take the train from Kingston to Toronto, but we only made it as far as Belleville.  We then had to transfer to buses because the freight train in front of us hit a car.  We found out later that there had been at least one fatality.  We arrived in Toronto two hours late but fortunately I had built quite a bit of slack into my schedule.

Then, when I arrived a little early at my hotel in Reims, I was told that it would be another 90 minutes before my room would be ready.  When I returned after 90 minutes, I was told that my room needed repairs and that I would have to go to a different hotel (which had a room ready).  Alas, when I arrived at the second hotel, they told me to return in 2.5 hours…because the room wasn’t ready (putting my occupancy far beyond the published check-in time).  Normally, this wouldn’t upset me too much, but I was feeling kind of grimy and really wanted to rest a bit after a sleepless night on the plane.  I also wasn’t impressed with the aim of a local pigeon.   There were some other frustrations with the tourist office and a few of the local vendors:  let’s just say that I was feeling a little victimized by the end of the afternoon.

Anyway, the day ended with a nice dinner.  My wife really likes crepes, so I took it as an omen when I found a creperie named after her.  I enjoyed my galette mexicaine very much and I think this points the way to a better day tomorrow!  Travel has its ups and downs: the key is to move on from the disappointments and find some new highlights.