Reims, the largest and most populated city in the Marne department of France. It's also the city that took me at least a year to learn how to pronounce correctly.
I had been calling it Reemz for the longest time until one day someone corrected my pronunciation.
"Oh, you mean Raunce."
When you are learning a new language you quickly discover that most letters are either silent or have completely different sounds than what you would expect from them. You start to wonder things like:
"Why do they put an "s" on every word if their not even going to pronounce it?"
"Okay so I should basically just ignore any "t" that I come across on the end of a word."
I'm sure that English is the same and I'm just so used to it that I dont notice such nonsense. "Kn" and "gh" combinations must be frustrating for new learners.
But I digress. Let's get back to the city.
Reims is located in the Northeastern part of the country close to the border of the Champagne region. With so many large Champagne houses headquartered there it is sometimes considered a sort of unofficial capital of Champagne. Its probably an ongoing debate between the cities of Reims and Epernay.
Nonetheless, tours and tasting are a common activity in the city and Champagne can be seen and bought in many shops and restaurants.
We even bought a bottle ourselves to take home with us, though this particular brand is actually based out of Epernay.
We ended up drinking it on New Years eve of 2020.
Historically Reims was once a major city within the Roman empire. Remnants of that time can still be seen there to this day.
The port de Mars dates back to the 3rd or 4th century.
The crowning jewel of Reims though is its impressive Roman Catholic Cathedral, dedicated Our Lady. It is a major tourist attraction and receives approximately one million visitors each year. It will be the main subject of this post.
Notre Dame Cathedral
The Cathedral as it is today was originally built in 13th century to replace its predecessor that was destroyed by a fire in 1210.
Work on the new Cathedral began a year later in 1211 and was completed in 1275.
The church stand 81 meters tall and is 149 meters in length.
The architectural style of the cathedral is High Gothic, which tends to be more refined as well as more prominent and imposing than regular Gothic.
It's has all of the usual Gothic features such as flying buttresses and stained glass,
but brings the additions of extended heights, realistic sculptures, and refined tracery.
Tracery is the use of stone bars and moldings to line and support windows. As the name suggests, it traces around the features that it is meant to support.
The Rose window is a common feature of the High Gothic style as well and is a good example of the use of tracery to create elaborate supports for stained glass.
Even the flying buttresses of the Reims Cathedral are quite elaborate. They are adorned with a small tabernacle and inlaid with statues of different saints.
There are more than 2300 statues lining the front and back facades.
Near the beginning of this post I stated that the Cathedral was the "crown jewel" of the city and I used that phrase intentionally.
In some ways it was sort of the crown jewel of the country as well. It served as the traditional Coronation location for all of the early kings of France.
In 1793 during the French Revolution the cathedral was closed for a time and converted into a storage house for grain. During that time many of the sculptures were destroyed by the people of the city. The relics were also melted down for their gold and the bells were turned into cannons.
In 1914 during World War One the cathedral took heavy damage after multiple artillery raids. One such raid caught the church on fire.
The fire was so hot that it actually melted the bells and the lead roof.
Molten metal was even seen pouring out of the mouths of the stone gargoyles.
Part of the cathedral is now a museum and I don't remember if the gargoyle in the photo above was an original or a replica. I'm guessing it is a replica.
The Cathedral was rebuilt and restored over the preceding decades and eventually turned into a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991.
The interior of the cathedral is impressive as well. I only took a few pictures inside when I was there but I didn't get a good overview of the space so I found two photos online to give you an idea.
They show the Rose windows of the front and side entrances as well as the seating arrangements.
I took a few photos of the interior architecture though, including this photo of the pointed arches that are a common feature of the Gothic style. Pointed arches are used for decoration as well as to increase height within the interior. In the photo you can also see that the columns are surrounded by three addition smaller columns, which are meant to secure the column in place and to give them more strucure and style.
You can also see the use of the four part rib vault, which also allowed for greater heights, as well as more harmony between the choir and nave.
Dude!!! hahahah I was like "that's utter bs, you would never say REIMS this way".
I turn around to my wife, "I would you say REIMS?"
R A U N C E
No shit!!! 😃
Man, the Notre Dame Cathedral is probably the most beautiful cathedral I've ever seen, the lines, the gothic style, just pure freaking melted chocolate on the top of that cherry on the top of that layered cake.
So, that Canadian is popping Champagne bottles in France like he owns the place, probably wearing a flannel shirt, eating all our truffles, living La vida loca!!!
Ok, let's make an agreement, right here right now.
I take all the Notre Dame from the South, and you do the North ones. It's too cold for me up there anyway.
Haha It was a French person who told me how to pronounce it lol.
Lmao 🤣
That really cracked me up.
Dealz
Haha, been to Reims 2 times and visited the champagne production...
A really nice place to go
Yeah Reims is a nice town. We haven't been to any of the Champagne houses there though.
Whooot, you should. The old cellar with all this bottles are worth a visit.....
So is it Raunce as in raun-chy but ending with s instead of chy?
And are you trying to confuse us all, why is this also called Notre Dame? From memory, it looks like the Notre Dame in Paris as well. So confusing!!!!!
Great cathedral nevertheless!!
Yes exactly, except there is nothing raunchy about the city. It is very lovely haha. But yes that is how you pronounce it as I understand.
Okay yes this is confusing. It confused me when I got here as well. Basically every large city in France (or so it seems) has a cathedral and most are dedicated to "Our Lady" = Notre Dame and most have the same architectural layout as well. So they basically all look the same with only subtle differences and they are all called the same thing. Reims is particularly impressive though but it looks very much like the one in Paris. It becomes a bit repetitive after a while and I stopped taking pictures of them but Here are some examples that I've seen. You'll notice just subtle differences in size, color and design.
Notre Dame in Amiens
Notre Dame in Rouen
Notre Dame in Senlis
Notre Dame in Strasbourg
Notre Dame in Soisson
LOL. I think you should continue taking photos of all the dear ladies around France, that would make a nice collection!!!
I will keep that in mind.
I actually wanted to ask you something about pinmapple. A few years ago now - before I knew about pinmapple, I made a bunch of post about places that I have been to. I would like to add them to my map so I'm wondering if I can add them by editing the posts with a pinmapple link or if I should make a new post about them. What would you recommend?
Nice post again. Oh yeah, this is another architectural category next to the castles, where you only have a few hundred more to go... Being the nice guy that I am, I'm NOT gonna make your brain sweat and ask you which ones are your five favorite cathedrals / churches in France. ;-)
Haha yeah there are so many of them. We don't even go into all of them anymore so I've actually missed out on a few good ones, like Strasbourg for instance. Rouen and Reims were good. There are some very unique ones we have seen though that are not Notre Dames. They have a different architectural style entirely and seem to be more scarce/unique - Sacre Cœur is an obvious one and the church in Lyon (not sure the name).
The "castley" looking one in Lyon is also called Nôtre Dame (de something or other) and I'm assuming that's the one you mean. The actual cathedral of Lyon by the river is called St. Jean. I must admit, I also haven't been in either. It gets repetitive after a while.
The one in Lyon I'm referring to is Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon. It's way up on the hill overlooking the city and is quite different than most churches. My photos of it aren't great but it really stands out for me in memory.
Nope, that's Nôtre Dame. St. Jean Baptiste is the one just below that, right by the river. St. Jean is also called Lyon Cathedral. Wouldn't stake my life on it but confidence is high. Not high enough to google, though 😃
Yep you're right. I just googled it hahaha
The site I originally looked at was incorrect apparently. Thanks for pointing that out. 👍
Raus?! lol. Blummin mad pronunciations.
I love Cathedrals. That one looks astonishing. The work and effort that went into their construction is incredible. The builders were geniuses.
Yeah but with an "n" in there. Languages are crazy. English definitely has those challenges as well I'm sure.
Yeah the effort and the money and the show of power really. Back then the churches were the tallest buildings in any city. They still are in many.
Thanks for your clarification on the Notre Dame part. I was also quite confused about how that building isn't in Paris. Also great views of such an imposing building. Really enables you to picture how mighty and influential the Catholic Church once was
Yeah, I think after seeing the 3rd Notre Dame in France I had to google an explanation lol. Other types of churches are named after saints as well, so you start seeing repeats of them when you start looking lol
I was two times visiting Notre Dame and everytime its special, the whole architecture is amazing..
Was that in Reims or just just in general. Pretty much every city in France has a Notre Dame Cathedral. Most are of similar architecture and style as well. Some are just a little most impressive than others.
Just in general- This architecture is so different than for example the most Cathedrales in Germany so when i am in France its wow..:)
Gotcha. That makes sense. The cathedrals in Germany are very nice as well and some are similar. Like the one in Cologne.
Oh yes they are.. i like both of them. The one in cologne is very beautiful, especially when its christmas time and its next to the christmas market it looks great.
Yes I agree. Christmas is an especially nice time to see it.
this gothic style is really beautiful. i especially like the photo from the wide angle perspective. Great post!
Yeah I really like the Gothic style architecture as well. It's so intricate in its detail.
The architecture is splendid and you managed to squeeze in some Champagne tasting too, happy days. That sounds like a great day out. Oh and thanks for teaching me how to pronounce Reims!! I too had been mis-pronouncing it for years :)
Haha no problem. The pronunciation isn't what you would expect.
I'll always have issues with French words and their pronunciations...
How can Reims be pronunced Raunce
Haha yeah I hear you. Yeah it seems like a big jump to me but language is so tricky in general. Letter combinations produce different sounds. To native speakers the rules are obvious but to outsiders it doesn't make any sense - in some cases even after you get an explanation why lol
Yeah...
That's true about language though...
it is an amazing post. I love your story
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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