Burton Dane Travels

We're traveling through Europe and parts nearby for a year. We'll be posting our pix and adventures here.

Friday, February 09, 2007

Reims






We enjoyed a couple of cold, clear days in Reims, the largest city in the Champagne region. The Notre Dame church had some of the best stained glass windows we’ve seen. The pictures show two that are different from the others.

Marc Chagal worked with a local stained glass artist to create the windows in one of the chapels. I love the abstracted colored light coming through these windows. They tell stories without being too precise.

I don’t know the artist for the other window. It used the lead lines to create motion and divide up space. I don’t know if there is imagery there or not. I just found it appealing.

We also had to stock up on some of the region’s products. Turns out the French drink 80% of the champagne they make. Only a few big companies export. We sampled the ones that don’t and they’ve been delicious.

We stood in the War Room where Eisenhower planned the last few months of WWII. The maps and battlefield status charts are all still on the walls. I found it amazing to see how they displayed the information they worked from. Wall size maps with little movable pads. Six foot charts showing troop and soldier readiness. Lots of space dedicated to food logistics. One of the most important planning rooms of the last century and it’s just markers and oversized charts!

This was also the room where the Germans negotiated and signed the surrender papers. Eisenhower wasn’t in the room because there was no German of equal rank available. The Russians insisted on repeating the signing the next day in Berlin. I guess the Cold War started in this room as well.

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