Paris, France (Days 1 & 2)

What we did:
- Got into Paris around 5pm. Great audible to take the train instead of drive. We checked into our hotel in the trendy 10th arrondissement - nice place and no bed bugs either!! Nice to be in this area as it's around all the local haunts.
- Walked over to grab Ramen for dinner and enjoyed a nice chill dinner. But we are in Paris so before calling it a night we needed some street Crepes! We tried to get to two places that we’re a 20ish minute walk from us and once we were close it started getting fairly sketchy…. So we called it and just headed back to the hotel. Fortunately we stumbled upon one right near us that just wasn’t on Google - the banana nutella street crepes were amazing!
- Woke up to meet Trent’s cousin Sarah who’s a senior at the American university in Paris! Turns out the hotel we booked was one block away from her apartment - what are the odds in such a sprawling city as Paris?!
- We enjoyed croissants and coffee from a local boulangerie as we caught our train out to the town of Reims in Champagne! So great to catch up with Sarah on the way.
- Once in Reims we walked through the town and saw the famous Notre Dame church. We had time before our first tasting so we grabbed some drinks and then hit another boulangerie for sammies. French bread always hits>>>
- We taxi’d to the first stop at the notorious Veuve Clicquot. Was an hour and half tour of the caves and tasting of 5 champagnes. Definitely pretty commercial but we really enjoyed the whole experience. Heavy pours too!
- Afterwards we took an Uber about 20 mins into the countryside to the Mailly champagne house. It was raining but we were still able to see the rows of gorgeous colored vineyards. Wine country in the fall is beautiful as each vine takes on it’s own color. Sarah said that visiting the Champagne region is her equivalent to a Pumpkin Patch - must be nice to be a local Parisian!
- Mailly was awesome as we had a 1:1 with the tour lady for about an hour. Super interesting to hear about the differences in how champagne is bottled as compared to still wine. Mailly is also a collective where all the farmers in the village produce the grapes and combined in the house. Great comparison to the commercialization of Veuve.
- Grabbed a beer at “Hemingway’s” in town for an hour and caught the train home. So fun to see Sarah and find out about her life living in Paris!
- Sarah went home to study (not sure how in the Champagne fog) while we regrouped and went to a local Cafe for burgers! Man the French know how to make a burger.
- Then we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower! Right as we got off the train we hit the viewpoint to see it do it’s hourly twinkle. Honestly pretty cool given we voted it is likely the most famous man-made thing on earth.
- Walked around the park for an hour and a half, but it was getting cold and it was a long day so called a cab back. We immediately fell asleep when the heads hit the pillows. Great day!

What we ate:
- Yamanashi Ramen for dinner. Honestly not great and turns out the guy comes around with a QR code to give him a 5 star rating - no wonder it got so many 5 star reviews on Google...
- Croissants from Du Pain et des ídeas in the 10th arrondissement
- Delicious sandwiches for lunch at Le Four a Bois.
- Burgers and spicy cauliflower at La Banquette Marais cafe in the 10th arrondissement!

Fun facts:
- Under the town of Reims there are 250 km of caves that all the champagne houses use to store and age their champagne. During WW2 the French hid out in these caves. Even though the Germans knew about it, they couldn’t figure out how to get down there so this saved many lives.
- Veuve actually exports 90% of it’s champagne to the US and Japan. So it’s actually a commercialized producer that the locals don’t like as much. After tasting Mailly we agreed it’s overrated!Read more