Discover Reims: Culture, History and Hotels

Reims combines Gothic art, French coronation history, museums and Roman architecture with its Champagne heritage. If you are looking for a hotel in Reims, exploring these themes can help you decide whether the city suits your interests. Its cultural highlights range from religious art and historical collections to Roman monuments and modern architecture.

Gothic Art and Coronation History

Notre-Dame de Reims Cathedral is a masterpiece of Gothic art. The Palais du Tau complements this focus with two spaces that can be dated precisely: its palace chapel dates from the 13th century, and its banqueting hall from the 15th century. Their different dates give the Palais’s architecture a distinctive historical span.

The Palais du Tau also houses the Museum of the Cathedral’s Works and Treasury. It contains outstanding pieces associated with the coronations of the kings of France. Here, the architectural history of the Palais and the cathedral collection associated with the coronations come together, offering a perspective on Reims that brings architecture and significant evidence of royal coronations into focus.

Collections on the History of Reims

The Musée Saint-Remi presents significant collections on the history of Reims and the region in 17 galleries. They span the period from prehistory to the Renaissance, alongside an extensive section on military history. A broad historical scope and a distinct thematic focus are presented side by side.

The chapter house at the Musée Saint-Remi merits a closer look. It is a masterpiece of Romanesque art and houses around 30 small sculpted capitals, created around 1130. The room provides a specific example of Romanesque art within the museum’s broader collections. The approximate number and date place the capitals in context without displacing the museum’s other historical themes.

The Musée de la Reddition du 7 mai 1945 offers a different focus. Its map room has been preserved in its original state from May 1945 and offers an immersive sound and light experience. This brings together a tangible historical room and the multisensory presentation described for the map room.

Foujita’s Artistic Vision

The Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix offers an introduction to the work of Léonard Foujita. He designed and entirely decorated the chapel between 1965 and 1966. His design combines Japanese culture with references to the Italian Renaissance. These two cultural frames of reference convey the character of his artistic work without reducing it to a single tradition.

Foujita’s personal story is also connected to the chapel: he and his wife Kimiyo are buried there. The design, cultural influences and burial place are different facets of this site. Art lovers can understand the chapel both through its dated creation and through its combination of Japanese and Italian influences.

Roman and Modern Architecture

The Porte de Mars reaches back to Roman history. The monumental arch was built around the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries and is considered the longest arch in the Roman world. It is 6.4 metres high and 32.4 metres long. Its measurements convey the scale of the structure, while its date places it in a different historical context from the Gothic and Romanesque examples.

The Halles du Boulingrin represent another architectural facet: they are among the rare examples of Reims architecture associated with modernism. They also house a covered market, an organic market, a book market and a craft market. The Halles thus bring architectural history together with different types of markets.

Champagne Heritage and Cultural Use

Le Cellier connects Champagne history with a later cultural use. The building was constructed in 1898 for the Champagne house Mumm as a shipping cellar for bottles ready to be dispatched. Following its restoration, it has housed cultural activities since 2015. The change from its original function as a shipping cellar to cultural use reflects two distinct chapters in the building’s history.

The Saint-Nicaise hill is also part of Reims’s Champagne heritage: it is one of three components of the UNESCO World Heritage property “Hillsides, Houses and Cellars of Champagne.” This makes it possible to consider Champagne not only through individual buildings but also in the context of a wider World Heritage property.

Reims’s historical highlights thus range from Gothic art and coronation history to museums and Roman architecture, as well as modern architecture and Champagne heritage. They offer different cultural points of reference for choosing Reims as a destination, without reducing the city to a single period of its history.

Discover more destinations: Bethon, Montgenost, La Noue, Avize, Merfy, Marson, Mareuil-Sur-Ay, Montmirail.

For the broader travel overview: Marne.