Culture & shopping
Culture & shopping in Reims
In Reims, culture and retail are the same trip: a cellar tour that ends in the boutique, a market hall that's also an art-deco monument, museums five minutes from the shopping streets.
The champagne houses (tours, tastings, boutiques)
Shopping in Reims starts underground. The great houses all run tours ending in their boutiques - and the bottles you can't get at home are the real souvenirs.
Veuve Clicquot
The most theatrical cellars in town, dug into Gallo-Roman chalk pits. Tours book out days ahead in season; the boutique stocks vintages and La Grande Dame you won't find elsewhere.
Taittinger
Tours run through the former Saint-Nicaise abbey cellars - chalk pits carved by the Romans, now stacked with sleeping bottles. The most historic setting of the big houses.
Pommery
The fairy-tale estate: mock-Elizabethan buildings over vast crayères, with contemporary art installations in the cellars. The boutique and the grounds are worth the trip south of the centre.
Mumm
The red-ribboned house on the Champ de Mars - tours and tastings in one of the most central cellars.
Town-centre shopping
Rue de Vesle and the Cours Jean-Baptiste Langlet are the main shopping streets - high-street brands, local boutiques and the three-floor Galeries Lafayette (33-45 Rue de Vesle) with its gourmet food hall for edible souvenirs. The Place Drouet-d'Erlon arcades handle the rest.
For food shopping, the Halles du Boulingrin (50 Rue de Mars) is the move: cheese, charcuterie, jambon de Reims and biscuits roses de Reims - the pink biscuits made for dunking in champagne, a Maison Fossier speciality. Le Parvis (2 Rue Rockefeller) doubles as a caviste and fine grocer if you want bottles chosen by people who do this for a living.
Culture to pair with it
Reims' museums cluster around the cathedral quarter: the Palais du Tau (coronation treasures), the Musée Saint-Remi (city history in the old abbey), the Chapelle Foujita (33 Rue du Champ de Mars - frescoes by the Japanese-French painter Léonard Foujita, consecrated 1966), and the Cryptoportique (6 Place du Forum - the Roman underground gallery). The tourist office at 6 Rue Rockefeller sells combined passes and confirms seasonal hours.
Common questions
Which champagne houses can I tour in Reims?
Veuve Clicquot (1 Place des Droits-de-l'Homme), Taittinger (9 Place Saint-Nicaise), Pommery (5 Place du Général Gouraud) and Mumm (34 Rue du Champ de Mars) all run public tours - book ahead, especially in season.
Where is the main shopping street in Reims?
Rue de Vesle and the Cours Jean-Baptiste Langlet, with Galeries Lafayette at 33-45 Rue de Vesle.
What food souvenirs should I buy in Reims?
Biscuits roses de Reims (for dunking in champagne), jambon de Reims terrine, and a bottle from a house boutique you can't get at home.
More to explore in Reims
If you book through these links, Dayfari may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.