3 Days in Reims
The Perfect Itinerary

Guided tour of Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Tower climb

Start where everything begins in Reims. The cathedral façade is a book in stone — smiling angels, gargoyles, eight centuries of royal coronation scenes carved into the limestone. Take the guided tour: it brings to life layers of history invisible to the untrained eye, from the first stone laid in 1211 to the Marc Chagall stained-glass windows in the axial chapel. The Tower climb rewards you with a sweeping view over the city's white limestone rooftops and the vineyards stretching to the horizon.

Worth knowing: Reims was the city where the kings of France were crowned for over a thousand years. Standing inside this cathedral, that history is not abstract.

La Grande Georgette

Set inside the former Chanzy fire station (1926) — a fine Art Deco building facing the cathedral — La Grande Georgette serves confident, generous bistronomic cuisine. Its terrace with a direct view of Notre-Dame's façade is one of the best lunch spots in central Reims.

Maison Pommery

Pommery announces itself long before you arrive: its neo-Elizabethan buildings — red brick, turrets, grand archways — were conceived in the late 19th century by the widow Pommery who wanted her champagne house to rival the great English country estates. Below these striking buildings, 18 km of chalk galleries (known as crayères) were dug 30 metres underground, where the Maison hosts an annual contemporary art exhibition — a unique blend of oenology and artistic creation found nowhere else in Reims.

Visits are available with a guide (reservation recommended) or as a self-guided tour using the Pommery mobile app — which means you can visit without having planned ahead.

En Aparthé

A charming tea room just steps from the cathedral, En Aparthé offers over 70 teas, 15 hot chocolates and daily homemade pastries by their in-house pastry chef. A quiet, cosy pause in a warmly decorated space.

Le Parvis

Directly facing the cathedral, Le Parvis is a champagne cave and refined bar-restaurant in one. An outstanding selection of champagnes from major houses and independent growers, served alongside truffle and caviar accompaniments. The view of Notre-Dame from the terrace is exceptional.

Café de la Paix — seafood and brasserie classics

A Reims institution renowned for its seafood: oyster platters, seafood chowder, grilled andouillette. The Café de la Paix is a generous, unpretentious brasserie with a loyal local following — a great way to end the first day.

Art Deco walking trail

After the First World War, Reims was 80% destroyed. It was rebuilt in the 1920s and 1930s in a sweeping Art Deco style that makes it one of the world's most concentrated showcases of the movement — facades, ironwork, stained glass, mosaics, public buildings and private homes, all built in a single coherent architectural moment. The morning is the ideal time for this walk: raking light on the stone, quiet streets.

Café du Palais

Open since 1930, the Café du Palais is a classified Art Deco monument — and still very much a working brasserie. The stunning stained-glass ceiling signed by master glazier Jacques Simon filters the light over boiseries, ceramic walls and mirrored surfaces. Lunch here after the morning walk is to extend the immersion into the era. Solid bistro cooking, good champagne by the glass.

Musée Le Vergeur then Le 3 par Champagne Thiénot

On Place du Forum, the Musée Le Vergeur occupies one of the most beautiful private mansions in Reims — a 15th-century townhouse acquired in 1910 by the collector Hugues Krafft, who rescued it from being dismantled and shipped to the United States. It houses his remarkable collections: Renaissance furniture, fifty original woodblock engravings by Albrecht Dürer, and objects gathered during travels across Asia and the Orient. A quietly extraordinary museum, labelled "Maison des Illustres" (House of Illustrious People).

A short walk away, Le 3 par Champagne Thiénot opened in 2025 in an entirely renovated 5,000 m² building 40 metres from La Rêverie and Noctambulle Forum Prestige. A vegetated open-air cloister, historic underground cellars, an immersive educational trail, guided tasting — an intimate and contemporary experience.

Paintagruelique

An artisan bakery selected by Gault&Millau, celebrated for exceptional sourdough breads, viennoiseries and pastries. A simple, well-earned pause before the evening.

Le Pressoir

Near the Halles du Boulingrin market, Le Pressoir is an unusual wine and champagne shop across two levels: a boutique on the ground floor with 1,200 references, and a 190 m² tasting cellar in the vaulted basement, fitted out like a traditional winemaker's chai. A genuine hidden gem for an aperitif off the beaten track.

Racine or Arbane — book well in advance

The second evening is the great evening. Two double-starred tables stand out in Reims:

Racine (Chef Kazuyuki Tanaka, ★★) — just 14 covers, Franco-Japanese cuisine of extraordinary precision, a Japanese garden, and 250 champagne references. An experience unlike anything else.

Arbane (Chef Philippe Mille, MOF 2011, ★★ + Passion Dessert 2026) — in an 1874 townhouse, open kitchen, cooking over vine-shoot embers, and a champagne list celebrating the region's terroir in all its expressions. Double Michelin distinction in 2025 and 2026.

Basilica of Saint-Rémi and the Musée Saint-Rémi

To reach the basilica from the centre, follow the Voie des Sacres (the Royal Coronation Road) — the ancient processional route along which the kings of France rode on their way to be crowned. A fitting walk for a city built around the ritual of kingship.

The Basilica of Saint-Rémi is the oldest of Reims' great churches — 11th century, sober, luminous, listed as UNESCO World Heritage. A very different experience from the Gothic cathedral: older, quieter, less visited. Note: the contemporary stained-glass windows in the nave (1950–1980) are the work of the Atelier Simon Marq — a thread that will continue this afternoon.

In the adjoining former Benedictine abbey, the Musée Saint-Rémi traces the history of Reims from Gallo-Roman times, with remarkable archaeological collections and 16th-century tapestries.

Picnic at the Parc de Champagne

Pick up provisions on the way — the food shops and delis around Place du Forum allow you to put together a regional spread. On Saturday mornings, the Halles du Boulingrin (a classified Art Deco market hall, a short walk away) are the obvious choice: local producers, Champagne cheeses, charcuterie.

The Parc de Champagne — formerly Parc Pommery — is far more than a park. Created from 1908 by the Marquis Melchior de Polignac (director of Pommery and personal friend of Pierre de Coubertin), this 22-hectare site was in its day the most ambitious sports complex in France: a swimming pool, an athletics track, football and rugby pitches, a velodrome, a covered gymnasium. In July 1912, back from the Stockholm Olympics where French athletes had disappointed, the Marquis gathered 23,000 spectators here to welcome 27 Olympic athletes — the press called it the "Reims Olympics". In 1913, naval officer Georges Hébert established here the first French Collège d'Athlètes — forerunner of the modern national sports institute — where champion Jean Bouin trained. The First World War ended it all. The park was restored in 1922, listed as a Historic Monument in 2004, and is now a vast shaded space of 3,000 trees, open and free, host to concerts, markets and sporting events throughout the year.

Maison Ruinart then Atelier Simon Marq

Ruinart, founded in 1729, is the oldest champagne house in the world. Its crayères — listed as a Historic Monument since 1931 and inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List — are among the most awe-inspiring underground spaces in the region: cathedral-shaped galleries carved into pure chalk, 38 metres below ground. In 2024, the house unveiled the Pavillon Nicolas Ruinart, designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto: a contemporary stone-and-glass pavilion surrounded by a sculpture garden, with a champagne bar, boutique and private tasting rooms. The guided cellar visit departs from this new pavilion.

A few minutes away, the Atelier Simon Marq has been crafting stained glass in Reims since 1640 — twelve generations of master glaziers. The studio collaborated with Marc Chagall, Georges Braque and Joan Miró, and is currently creating the new windows for Notre-Dame de Paris. Their workshop, housed in the Église du Sacré-Cœur, is a rare visit: lead came, coloured glass, artist cartoons. A beautiful echo of the Simon Marq windows seen this morning at the Basilica of Saint-Rémi.

Chausson

A vegetarian tea room and lunch canteen run by Camille and Clara, Chausson serves a short, sincere menu using organic and local produce — tarts, soups, daily pastries. A light and restorative pause before the final evening.

Wine Bar by Le Vintage

For this last evening, the terrace of the Wine Bar by Le Vintage on Place du Forum is the right choice. Run by brothers Nicolas and Pierre-Louis Papavero, this much-loved wine bar offers 1,200 references including 400 champagnes — from the great houses to small grower-producers across all the Champagne sub-regions. Charcuterie and aged cheese boards to accompany.

Crypto

On Place du Forum, Crypto — chef Frédéric Dupont, mentioned in both the Gault&Millau and Michelin guides — serves refined traditional French cuisine in a distinctive setting with an excellent wine list. A fitting way to end three days in Reims, steps from where you had aperitifs.