For over a thousand years the kings of France came to Reims to be crowned, and the cathedral that still dominates the city shows why. The tradition goes back to Clovis, baptised here around the year 500 by Bishop Remigius, and some thirty-odd monarchs followed, ending with Charles X in 1825. The present Gothic building dates from the thirteenth century, its west front crowded with statues, among them the Smiling Angel, and it was damaged badly by German shelling in the First World War before being painstakingly restored. Inside, stained glass by Marc Chagall glows blue behind the apse, installed in the 1970s.
Reims is also a champagne capital, and it wears this lightly. Beneath the streets lie kilometres of chalk cellars, some of them Roman quarries called crayères, in which the great houses age millions of bottles at a steady cold temperature, and the cellars and the hillsides around them were added to the UNESCO list in 2015. Houses such as Pommery, Taittinger and Veuve Clicquot are all in town, and most offer guided tours that end, naturally, with a glass. The city also has a nice, odd claim to history: Germany's unconditional surrender in the Second World War was signed here, in a school building, on 7 May 1945. And do not miss the biscuits roses, pink sponge fingers that have been dunked in champagne since the eighteenth century.
For a ride called the Champagne Tourist Route, Reims is the right place to begin. The city is flat and busy, with a wide central square, tram lines to watch, and one-way streets, so park the bike in an underground garage if you stay. Fuel is easy, with stations on every ring road and supermarkets around the edge, and cafés open early. Leaving town, you climb quickly onto the Montagne de Reims, a forested ridge covered in vines on its flanks, where the roads wind between villages with names that appear on bottle labels.
Mornings are the best time to ride, before the day-trippers appear. The vineyards are most beautiful in autumn, when the leaves go gold and red, though harvest brings tractors and slippery grape juice on the tarmac. Spring can bring frost warnings, and night cold in the open chalk country. Wear a layer.