I've visited the Napa Valley several times, but I'd always wanted to see how they make wine in France.  The tour company I used didn't offer tours of Burgundy or Bordeaux, just a tour of the Champagne district.  Oh, well, maybe bubbles will be interesting.

Our first stop was Piper-Heidsieck in the town of Reims.

We arrived mid-morning on a beautiful summer day.  We had a pleasant group.

The visit to Piper-Heidsieck was almost like a visit to Disneyland.  They were really prepared for visitors, with the cellars (caves) dramatically lighted.

They even had a ride -- sorta like the Haunted Mansion with bubbles instead of ghosts.

Oooohhh, spooky grapes.

And a large concrete hand holding a giant milk bottle.  I can't explain this one at all.

Our little car followed the tracks in the floor, turning this way and that to give us a good view of all the bottles.

While Champagne is doing its last bit of fermentation in the bottle (to produce all the bubbles), it must be rotated a quarter turn once a day.  Some wineries, like Moët et Chandon, still hire people to do this by hand -- some men can turn 6,000 bottles an hour.  But Piper-Heidsieck has a mechanical system that turns the bottles automatically, one big rack at a time.

They try to sell you on their product by tying it to show business.  There's Humphrey Bogart himself, standing by the bar at Rick's Café Americain in Casablanca.  Guess they must have served Piper-Heidsieck in the movie.  I'll have to watch for it next time I see the film.

You must remember this,
A kiss is still a kiss,
A sigh is just a sigh ...

After tasting a glass of bubbly wine, we left Piper-Heidsieck and stopped down the street at the historic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Reims.

It's unusual to see a smiling figure in gothic statuary.  This smiling angel has become the symbol of Reims.

There's our guide giving us a speech in English, and then repeating it in Italian.  Another guide handled the Japanese tour members.

Those pockmarks are left from bombing during the First World War.  All, or almost all the stained glass windows were destroyed then, and they've been replaced mostly with translucent glass.  It was interesting to see a well-lit gothic cathedral, as most I've been in have been so dark it was difficult to see much detail.

But they did have this magnificent stained glass window by 20th century artist Marc Chagall.

The outside.  Like so many structures from the middle ages, the stone of the Reims cathedral is  deteriorating from acid in the air and rain.  So it's undergoing a cleaning and restoration.

Very impressive.

Our guide pointed us toward the center of town where we could find lunch among numerous shops and restaurants.

It was still a beautiful day, so I just wandered around, looking in the shop windows and nibbling on food I purchased here and there.

This was a shop I especially liked:  Waida.

Mmmmm.  Great dessert pastries, and they had meat pastries too.  I wanted to try them all, but I settled for a few sausage, tomato (with, surprise, anchovy paste), cheese pastries for lunch, and a cream pastry for dessert. 

Didn't even sit down to eat -- just kept wandering.

Finally ended up back at the cathedral, where we were to be picked up by our bus.

See the flying buttresses holding everything up?

Very nice, if you like monsters on your walls.

Fancy, too.  I kept expecting to see a guy with a hump on his back.  In fact, we learned that Victor Hugo was inspired to write "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" while visiting the Notre-Dame Cathedral of Reims.

That is ... um ... somebody famous.  They told us.  Louis XV, maybe?

Ah, now we're back in wine country, on our way to Epernay and the cellars of Moët et Chandon.

First we stopped along the way to visit the grapes.

We learned that Champagne is traditionally made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.  But the really expensive Champagne, particularly Dom Perignon, is made only from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir because it must be made from Grand Cru grapes, and there are no Grand Cru Pinot Meunier grapes.  Bet you didn't know that.

A vinyard.

A farmer out standing in his field.

Here we are at the second and last winery of the day, Moët et Chandon.

There's the good Dom Perignon, the monk credited with inventing wine with bubbles, but Wikipedia says he really didn't.

And here are a few bottles of wine with bubbles -- rack upon rack, level upon level.  All underground in chalk caves that maintain cool temperatures.  Some people wore jackets down here, but I found the temperature cool and comfortable.

Rack upon rack upon rack.  And every bottle must be rotated a quarter turn every day.

And there's the nice lady who served us one glass of Champagne apiece.

I bought a couple of ballpoint pens in the souvenir shop at Moët et Chandon.  Thought I could use them as Christmas gifts.  I put them in the rack above my head on the bus, and we rode back to Paris.  Trouble was, when we were driving back through the city, the driver stopped near the Paris Opera House to let anybody off who wanted to get off, and a nice family from Augusta, Georgia, took him up on his offer.  They scooped up all their souvenirs, hopped off the bus, and we drove on.  It was only when we arrived at the tour office that I realized they'd scooped up my ballpoint pens too.

Phooey.  I was mostly annoyed with myself for letting it happen.  Oh well, c'est la Christmas presents.  But I left a note at the tour office just in case.

And what do you know?  The family realized what had happened, checked with the tour company and found my note.   And as they had heard me say I was planning to go to Mt. St. Michel the following day, and they were too -- voila!  They returned the pens to me the next morning.  Boy was I surprised and delighted when I saw them walk onto the bus.  Sometimes things work out after all.