Taxi Sedan → Reims

Sedan, a historic Ardennes town, is world-famous for its castle, the largest fortified castle in Europe with 35,000 m² of built area on a rocky spur overlooking the Meuse. This colossal fortress, dating back to the 15th century and enlarged by the princes of La Marck and the La Tour d'Auvergne family, is an open-air history book. Its massive walls, over thirty metres high, its star-shaped bastions added by Vauban and its labyrinthine underground passages have weathered five centuries of European conflict. Sedan is also inseparable from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870: it was here that Napoleon III's army was encircled and surrendered on 2 September 1870, bringing down the Second Empire. In 1940, Guderian's Panzer breakthrough at Sedan, crossing the Meuse on 13 May, opened the way for the Fall of France. But Sedan is also a town of textile tradition, famous for its cloth and velvet since the 17th century, with half-timbered houses and 18th-century mansions along the Meuse. The journey to Reims descends through Ardennes landscapes, passing through Charleville-Mézières, Rimbaud's birthplace, before reaching the Champagne plain and the city of coronations.