Taxi Bar-le-Duc → Reims

The Bar-le-Duc — Reims journey links two cities deeply marked by French history, from the Meuse to the Marne, through landscapes that witnessed some of the most dramatic episodes of national history. Bar-le-Duc, city of the goose-quill de-seeded redcurrant jam and starting point of the Sacred Way to Verdun, is a Renaissance town with unsuspected architectural treasures. The road to Reims crosses the Argonne forest, a vast wooded massif that served as a front line during the Great War with trenches still visible beneath the tree canopy. You then enter the chalky Champagne region, France's breadbasket, before reaching Reims, the coronation city where thirty-three kings of France were crowned from Clovis in 496 to Charles X in 1825. Reims Cathedral, a Gothic masterpiece begun in 1211, is famous for its Smiling Angel and its facade adorned with 2,303 statues. The champagne cellars carved into the chalk at depths of dozens of metres, UNESCO-listed since 2015, house millions of bottles from the greatest houses: Veuve Clicquot, Taittinger, Pommery, Ruinart.