Reims

Jeph and I left Paris today and made our way to Reims.  Driving in Paris is like driving in a big city only the lanes are may 2/3 the width of lanes in the US and the motorcycles are nuts.  They dodge in and out and around.   One will come up on your left between two cars in their lanes then dart across in front of your car just inches from being a hood ornament on the rental car.  Jeph says that natural selection has allowed only the riders that are experts are left.

The cathedral at Reims is fantastic.  It is built where a palace was located in the 5th century.  It looked to me like lace or a snowflake.   The buttresses are more subtle than those at Notre Dame, but they way are placed added to this feeling of lace.   On the lower levels, there was a musty / pleasant smell that was similar to that at the Cluny museum in Paris.

In WWI, the Germans wanted to demoralize the French and what better way than to take away the cathedral.  They bombed it multiple times in 1914.   Large parts of the roof and ceiling were destroyed and beautiful windows were lost.  It’s hard to picture this place with airplanes buzzing overhead focused on destroying this beautiful cathedral and its history, but that’s what I’m here for.. to pay homage to those who lived through it.

You can see where the ceiling had to be repaired by the color of the stones.   Window were restored and some were replaced by those designed by Chagall and Knoebel.  They are not what you expect to see in a cathedral where construction started in the 13th century.