Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday started with clear sky and the sun shining, a wonderful beginning to a great day!

We got up and shuffled around the room, drinking our insta-coffee. The French have wonderful hot water pots that act like thermo-nuclear devices in heating up water in nano-seconds. In the hotel coffee world, however, they are still back with Mrs. Olson and Folgers, only not quite as tasty.

We breakfasted downstairs in the hotel. The buffet was quite good, with a wider and fresher assortment than we found in Smorgasbord-Land. No sardines, though, which was a pity.

From there we walked to Reims’ Notre Dame Cathedral. It was easier to find than the prior day, which was more of a safari, “I think we turn right.” “That doesn’t feel right to me, let’s go left.” “The girl at the desk pointed to here on the map, let’s go this way.” “The girl at the desk couldn’t find the elevator, let’s go this way.” Actually, with the narrow streets and alleys, combined with three story 17th century houses with steep roofs, it is amazing how easily you can miss a 200 foot steeple that is one block away.

The cathedral is nothing short of spectacular. It is one of those typical European edifices, built in 900 AD on a Roman site from 100 BC, burned to the ground, started construction of the current Cathedral in 1201, mostly constructed through 1350 AD, but building still not quite finished, architect arguing about change orders for the vaulted ceilings. It was the site of numerous coronations of French kings, Henry V of England showed up, Joan of Arc was there, the Germans marched through it several times and now the Barnums have arrived, all in historical order.

We celebrated Easter service at the cathedral, which included Gregorian chanting by the choir and beautiful music from the huge church organ. It was a wonderful service.

From there we walked to the “Salle de Rendition” which is a museum in an old brick school house that served as the headquarters for General Eisenhower and his staff in World War II after D-Day through the end of the war and is the site where the German military staff formally surrendered. It is a simple, but very moving, place. You actually get to see the map room, with the table and chairs where the surrender took place, name plates for the participants on the back of the chairs.

We were feeling a bit hungry and thirsty, so we made our way to one of the town squares near our hotel, found a nice table outside and proceed to have a meal of crepes and champagne. Sitting there in the sun, sipping champagne with Karen was pretty much idyllic, even eclipsing my daydream of the peeled grapes and girls in togas (“You’ve had enough grapes, Gary, send the nymphs home.”). We ambled our way back to the hotel and promptly fell asleep, the afternoon nap being one of our vacation treasures.

That evening, we were booked for dinner at L'assiette Champenoise, a Michelin Guide, two star rated restaurant. I was checking the map for the location relative to our hotel and discovered what appeared to be a pretty easy route of about 2.2 kilometers, or a little less than a mile and a half, in “normal distance”. We had already walked a bit, so the choice was a taxi or driving. Karen, not hearing the eerie music in the background (the music you hear in horror movies when the audience is yelling, “stay out of the cellar!”), said “let’s drive”.

Driving in France has been pretty pleasant. We have a GPS device called a “Tom Tom” which Karen is very adept at using. You plug in your destination and follow the directions, all quite nice. Unfortunately, the Tom Tom works off maps loaded in the computer which are not updated (they are in the US and Canada, but not Europe). Reims is a sea of one-way streets, alleyways and dead-ends and it recently installed a city train system which has apparently caused a lot of rerouting, none of it known to Mrs. Tom Tom (since it is a lady’s voice telling us to “take the third exit on the fourth roundabout ahead”).

We started off well enough, though from my limited knowledge of the town, I thought we were supposed to turn right after leaving the hotel. Mrs. Tom Tom said, “left, no right, wait, no, go left.” We should have turned her off, parked the car and hailed a taxi then.

Mrs. Tom Tom guided us through a series of turns and we came up to a bridge crossing the river which she told us to get on, except the bridge was covered in train tracks with trains and clearly marked that cars were not allowed. I executed a quick turn and started to head back the way I thought we should have gone in the first place. What followed was a series of negotiations between Karen and me, “What do you think, left or right, I think left.” “Left will take us back where we were, let’s go right.” Meanwhile, in the background, Mrs. Tom Tom was “recalculating” and trying to send us to our deaths back on the “train bridge”. We dove into a mire of twists and turns and went down a narrow alleyway, coming into a four-way intersection in which all of the other three directions had a sign indicating that you couldn’t go that way. It was like one of those riddles where there is no way out and you have to figure out how it’s done. Straight ahead, a few blocks in the distance, we could see additional traffic which appeared to be moving cross-wise, and there were no cars in that particular road where we weren’t supposed to go, so Karen said, “let’s go that way, but fast.”

The nice thing about Reims is that they have a lot of streets that have been closed to cars and only allow foot traffic, making it very safe and peaceful. We have driven down several of them and they are lovely. Of course, our Renault being the size it is, we thought Karen could have got out and pushed it and people might have thought it was a baby carriage.

From there, we continued to execute a series of twists and turns, backed out of several one-way streets and then came out into a lovely square which looked vaguely familiar. It was, it was where our trip had started. At that moment, even Mrs. Tom Tom got quiet, though my wife said, “F%@!, I think I’m going to cry.” I’m not sure why, but it is at those types of moments, that confidence and clarity come to me, so I cheerily said, “I know where we are now, we can make it!” I drove on.

Now, I had allotted a little less than 30 minutes to get our car and drive the 2.2 kilometers to the restaurant and park the car. Our adventures had eaten away all of that time and Mrs. Tom Tom, who among other things tells you how far you are from your destination, had been going “2.2 * * * 3.8 * * * 1.9 * * * 3.4 kilometers” while Karen was repeating at various points, “We are going to be late.”

Undaunted, I finally came across what appeared to be a straight shot across a bridge that allowed cars over the river. It wasn’t quite that simple, as what was a straight shot became a right turn, though there was a middle section that went straight. I took it, to which Karen yelled, “Those are the train tracks!” so I started to veer to the right, “That is a curb!” When given the choice of train tracks and jumping off a curb, I recommend the curb and that is what we did. It seemed farther in our Renault and we landed with a thump. I did get comfort from those lovely three words which have taken me through all sorts of driving experiences around the world, “It’s a rental.”

We managed to continue straight after a couple of twists and came up to the restaurant. We parked in front and I handed the keys to the valet who wasn’t sure what to do with a car that size. We walked up the stairs and announced ourselves, “We are the Barnums!”

Walking into the tranquility of L'assiette Champenoise was wonderful, particularly after our just-completed trek. We were seated at a lovely table and a girl came by with a champagne cart, a huge rolling ice bucket with a selection of champagne bottles for your amusement. We amused ourselves and calmed down.

We had a plateful of wonderful appetizers, including a sushi-like salmon and a wonderful potato puff. At that point, vey serenely, one of the waiters (there were a lot of them) arrived with the menu. The menu was a sea of French, with references to truffe noire, vin jaune, jus de cuisson, Sainte Jacques, Phillipe Oliverier, pommes and confits. Since there was no English version, we had our waiter translate, the best he could, what the choices were. In the end, as it usually does, it came down to the universal question, “chicken or beef”? We took the beef.

The waiter was followed by the wine steward. I have seen wine lists and wine books, but he brought us a wine encyclopedia. It was a single book, but they could have legitimately brought it out in several volumes. There would have been a volume of just champagne, and with the other wines, the list wouldn’t have been red or white, it would have included entries like – Bourdeaux – Volumes 1 and 2, etc...

L'assiette Champenoise is a “little” on the expensive side, as in “Let’s go have a snack at L'assiette Champenoise and not pay the mortgage this month.” It was wonderful, though.

There was a host of people seeing to our table, the head waiter, the other waiter, and then "yet another waiter", the water boy, the “most of the silverware” girl and the “rest of the silverware girl”, the clean up person, the napkin girl, the other person with the food lid so the waiter and the other person could both reveal each course at the same time, and my favorite, the wine steward. With a wine list which included entries like, “expensive”, “really expensive”, “really-really-really expensive” and “I could buy a car for that”, the wine steward noticed my deathly pallor and steered us to a wonderful and relatively affordable Bourdeaux. He then decanted it and poured for us, keeping the bottle away from the table.

I am not normally a fan of having the bottle of wine “off-stage” as most servers don’t keep pace with me. Our wine steward, however, was lovely. If we drank, sipped, or he detected some evaporation, he was there to refill our glasses. I could take this guy home with us.

Each of the courses was lovely and the pace of the meal wonderful. We had asparagus with truffle, scallops, a lovely sea bass and veal, interspersed with little “snacks”. Then the cheese boy came out with a cart full of cheeses. When he lifted the lid, the cheese smell was close to overpowering in a very good way. We sampled six different kinds of cheese, from stinky blue to mild soft brie.

Then started the dessert, which was less of a course, and more of an onslaught. There were candies, macaroons, freshly made marshmallows, chocolates and demi-tarts, but that was just the introduction to the actual dessert which was a collection of custard, candy-crust, ice cream, caramel and fresh apples. This was followed by an “ice cream mint” which pretty much put us over the top. We bagged up the leftover desserts (I don’t know how often that happens at a Michelin restaurant, but we weren’t leaving those behind) and made our way out, being greeted by the chef as we left.

The drive back was fairly straight-forward and non-eventful. I don’t know if it was the effect of the wine or the Mrs. Tom Tom finally figured out the directions, but we made it back in record time.

It was a lovely Easter!!!