Paris, Day Four: Champagne, Caves, and a Series of Unfortunate Train Events

Planning a Paris trip? This is Day 4 in a series recapping our ten-year anniversary trip, neighborhood by neighborhood, meal by meal, with the honest version of what made the list and what we actually did.

What I Had Planned

Monday was the day I'd been quietly the most excited about since booking the trip: a day out of Paris entirely, into Champagne country (Reims) to tour two of the most famous champagne houses in the world.

The plan:

• Train from Paris to Reims, departing 8:28am, arriving 9:14am (booked)
• Taittinger tour (booked)
• Lunch at Le Square in Reims
• Ruinart tour (booked)
• Train back, departing 5:20pm, arriving 6:01pm (booked)
• Dinner at East Mamma, reserved for 8:30pm

Clean. Elegant.

…and then it started with a 70-euro fine.

What Actually Happened (The Part Before Champagne)

I knew we needed a metro ticket to get from our arrondissement to the main train station — separate from the intercity train tickets we already had. My metro card was empty with no ticket machine to reload it. Nathan had his loaded on his phone.

Reader, I am going to save you 70 euros.

We figured that if Nathan bought two tickets on his phone and we both scanned in, we could each pass through the turnstile with separate taps.

This turned out to be incorrect.

The transit police had a checkpoint before the main station. Two tickets on one phone does not equal two separate tickets for two people. I genuinely tried to do the right thing. The fine police didn't care.

We paid it, grumpily, and mentally filed it under "expensive Paris lesson."

The unposted rule: One metro ticket per person, each loaded separately. Do not share a phone.

We did our best to leave the bad energy at the station, boarded the train to Reims, and decided we were going to have a magnificent day regardless.

Reims: The Cathedral First

The train ride was smooth and easy, and we arrived at a station clearly full of other foreigners on their way to champagne house reservations. We had a 25-minute walk to our first stop. The weather was crisp but sunny, a perfect time for a walk.

I'm very glad we chose to walk rather than take a taxi.

The route goes past the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Reims, which is stunning in a way I wasn't prepared for. 

It looks remarkably similar to Notre Dame in Paris, which makes sense historically (both Gothic, both medieval, both enormous), but seeing it in the middle of Reims felt like a genuine surprise gift. The West facade alone is worth standing in front of for several minutes.

It was one of the unexpected highlights of our day.

Taittinger (Tat-tahn-zhay)

Taittinger was our first tour, and it was better than I expected — which, for a champagne cave in France, is saying something.

A brief intro video, a map walkthrough with the guide, and then down into the chalk caves.

The caves were dug in the 14th century and housed people during World War I. They're chilly and damp and lit in a way that makes the stacked bottles glow. 

I laughed a little when our guide said to be prepared for the humidity.

Born and raised in Houston…honestly, it felt dry.

At any given time, the caves hold over a million bottles. In the broader Reims region, there are reportedly 26 million bottles for Taittinger alone. 

A number that genuinely requires a moment to let settle.

Each bottle is aged for a minimum of three years from harvest. The harvest is always done by hand, and irrigation of champagne grapes is strictly regulated. Meaning the vines rely entirely on rainfall and on the chalk beneath the earth storing enough water for the roots to access during dry spells. 

The grapes are entirely at the mercy of the season, which is why real Champagne is usually $$$.

During aging, 10% of the bottles are turned by hand — one small rotation at a time, methodically, repeatedly — though machines handle the other 90% and all bottles larger than standard size. 

What I found interesting: hand-turned and machine-turned bottles are priced identically. You'll never know whether your specific bottle was turned by a person, alone in a cold chalk cave, working through a million bottles one by one.

Bottles larger than six liters are a combination of smaller bottles poured and sealed. This is slightly less romantic information, but there it is.

The tasting was excellent.

The decor in the tasting room, however, I need to address separately. 

The chairs. 

They were the perfect chairs — comfortable and beautifully patterned in a way that I can only describe as a need rather than a want. I spent a meaningful portion of the tasting using Google Lens on them. 

Also coveting: the coffee table, the end tables, the rug. If I ever identify those chairs, it may become its own blog post.

The Lunch Situation in Reims

We had planned on Le Square, which I'd confirmed in advance didn't take reservations. When we arrived — with empty tables still visible from the door — we were told it was fully booked and to come back in an hour.

Our next tour was in an hour.

It was also Monday, which meant most shops in Reims were still closed. Hangriness was setting in.

We found a pastry shop that worked in a fast-and-functional way. Cheap and sufficient. Not every meal in France is transcendent. This was one of the make-do ones, and we moved on.

Lesson learned: In Reims specifically, have a backup lunch plan, and don't count on Monday shop availability.

Ruinart

Ruinart is a different experience from Taittinger. Equally good, but with its own distinct character.

The building itself is beautiful, and the approach to the tour entrance passes through walls deliberately designed to evoke the carved chalk tunnels underground. It's a smart architectural choice that puts you in the right headspace before you've descended.

Ruinart's 300th anniversary is in 2029 and they've been preparing for years: a new tasting building was constructed around 2024 specifically for the milestone. The garden is filled with art and the building is elegantly modern.

The caves here house art installations alongside the bottles, which made the tour feel slightly more experiential and contemporary than Taittinger's.

There's also a tradition at Ruinart of letting visitors who've worked with the bottle stacks write the count and the date on a bottle. 

A few creative visitors had clearly taken this as an invitation to express themselves: one bottle had a hand-drawn Bart Simpson on it, which felt like a perfect bit of cave chaos.

The tasting was excellent, and we had a little extra time before our return train, so we sat at the bar and ordered a glass of something we hadn't tried in the formal tasting. Feeling good, new champagne bottles in hand.

And then we went to the train station.

The Train Situation

We arrived at the station to find it more crowded than expected for what I'd assumed would be a small, quiet regional stop.

Then we figured out why.

Our train was delayed 50 minutes. We had no snacks and no open chairs, so we sat on the floor.

Then someone in the crowd stood up and started jogging. Then another couple. Then more people, moving fast.

Nathan and I looked at each other.

We did not stop to translate the status board. We started running with the crowd.

Champagne jostling in bags.

Kettlebell workouts, as it turned out, are very applicable to sprinting through a French train station while carrying full bottles of bubbly.

We reached a conductor surrounded by a cluster of other confused travelers. He spoke just enough English to roughly translate: "Train cancelled. Get on this one."

We got on.

The replacement train had only reserved seats, none of which were ours since our train no longer existed. We found a spot in an unconditioned hallway stall near the restroom.  We’d rather sit there than have no seat at all on the last train back to Paris. 

Time passed. More time. A two-hour delay was announced — only deciphered by me hopping on and off the train to find someone who spoke English on the platforms.

Then they started handing out emergency food boxes. That's when you know the situation is dire.

I kept making trips through the train to find conductors who spoke more English, eventually piecing together: yes, we could stay on this train, no, we would not be fined. (That fear, very much unlocked from that morning.)

Two hours after our original train was supposed to depart, our now-renegade seats started moving. A major disruption at the Paris station had sent everything into chaos.

In retrospect: we had a completely smooth ride to Reims, zero disruption to either tour, and we made it back. There was a very real possibility of being stranded with an expensive cab home. Practicing gratitude in a stuffy train hallway with emergency food and no real idea what's going on is a skill. A valuable one.

East Mamma (Made It by Seconds)

Against all odds, we realized we could still make our East Mamma dinner reservation. We transferred from the main station to the metro, power-walked through the connection, and arrived at the restaurant at exactly 8:30pm.

Good? Yes. Great? There are better restaurants in Paris. I've since heard that Red Sauce is the stronger choice in this category — if I were going back, I'd try that instead.

But after the day we'd had, a lovely dinner and a glass of wine felt like exactly enough.

One more thing happened that night. I checked the D’Orsay website to make sure our plans were still good, and discovered that the museum pass rules had changed…literally on March 11th, two weeks before our trip, after I'd finalized everything and stopped checking.

Now it was required that even Paris Museum Pass holders book a timed reservation. 

The D’Orsay and Sainte-Chapelle, my two remaining must-sees for Tuesday, were both sold out.

Royally frustrated, we went to sleep hoping that a clear head in the morning would bring solutions.

Next up: Sainte-Chapelle (we winged it), E. Dehillerin (I lost my mind in the best way), and the best meal of the entire trip.

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