Reims - Porte Mars & Roman Arch

How to Complete

4 steps curated by Wine Memories

1. 📜 1

   Stand Under the Widest Roman Arch on Earth

   history Free

   📍 WHERE: Place de la République, 51100 Reims — 5 minutes' walk north from the train station. The arch is unmissable, standing alone in a public park.

   💡 WHAT: You are looking at the widest Roman triumphal arch still standing anywhere on earth — 32 metres across, three arched passageways, built in the early 3rd century AD. The Arch of Constantine in Rome? 25.9 metres. The Arch of Titus? 13.5 metres. The arch in Rome's most famous setting fits inside this one with room to spare. Rome built its grandest gates not in Rome — but here, at the northern edge of its empire, greeting travellers arriving from the English Channel.

   🎯 HOW: Walk directly under the arch and look up at each of the three vaults — this is where most visitors rush past without noticing the real thing. The EAST vault (your left as you face north): Romulus and Remus being suckled by the she-wolf, shepherd Faustulus and his wife beside them. This is Rome's founding myth, carved into a gate in northern France — imperial propaganda displayed to Gallic subjects arriving from the frontier. The WEST vault: Leda and the Swan — Zeus as a swan, the event that leads to Helen of Troy. The CENTRAL vault (the best): a 12-month harvest calendar — ploughmen, grape pickers, millers, harvesters — and among them a carved depiction of the VALLUS, the mechanical reaping machine described by Pliny the Elder in AD 77. This is one of the only known stone images of that machine in existence. The grapes being harvested in that carving are the direct ancestors of the Champagne vines you will taste this afternoon.

   🔄 BACKUP: The arch is always open, always free, never crowded at opening time. Visit before 9am for dramatic low-angle light on the carvings and empty space beneath.

   🍷 Log Memory
2. 📜 2

   Read the Arch That Has Outlasted Everything

   history Free

   📍 WHERE: Same spot — now circle to the exterior faces and look at the arch as a whole structure before walking south toward the cathedral.

   💡 WHAT: This arch has survived things that should have destroyed it. In 451 AD, Attila and the Huns swept through Gallia Belgica — they slaughtered Bishop Nicasius before his own altar in Reims. The arch outlasted the Huns. Then from 1228, for roughly 400 years, the arch was WALLED IN — its three arched openings blocked, incorporated into the Archbishop's castle, then sealed inside the medieval city rampart. The widest Roman arch in the world became an anonymous section of fortified wall, barely recognisable. It was only fully uncovered in 1854 when they demolished the city walls. Then came 1914. German artillery destroyed 80–85% of Reims. The Gothic cathedral 800 metres south of you took 300 direct shell hits — the roof melted, the medieval glass was lost, the north tower burned. The arch watched it all. No major damage.

   🎯 HOW: Walk south from the arch toward Reims Cathedral — 15 minutes through Place Drouet d'Erlon. As the cathedral comes into view on Cours Jean-Baptiste Langlet, hold both in mind simultaneously: the Roman arch that is 1,800 years old and still intact, and the Gothic cathedral that burned in 1914 and had to be rebuilt with Rockefeller money and contributions from Champagne houses. The Champagne houses didn't fund the cathedral from charity — they funded it because the cathedral is what gave Champagne its global prestige. The cathedral crowned 33 kings of France over 900 years, starting with Clovis in 496 AD. That royal connection made Champagne the wine of courts and celebrations worldwide. The arch, the cathedral, the Champagne in your glass — one story.

   🔄 BACKUP: If the cathedral is mid-service (check hours at cathedrale-reims.fr), walk to the exterior and look at the west facade — the sculptures survived better than the interior, and the restored stonework is itself a document of the restoration money that flowed into Reims after 1919.

   🍷 Log Memory
3. 🍷 3

   Taste the Chalk the Romans Dug and Drank From

   wine $

   📍 WHERE: Trésors de Champagne, La Boutique — 2 rue Olivier Métra, 51100 Reims (Boulingrin district, behind the Halles du Boulingrin market hall, ~10 min walk from the arch). Hours: Tue–Wed 2–7pm; Thu–Fri 10am–noon and 2–8pm; Sat 10am–1pm and 2–8pm. Closed Mon/Sun.

   💡 WHAT: This is where 28 artisan grower-Champagne producers sell from a single boutique — not the famous houses with their multi-million marketing budgets, but the farmers who grow on individual plots of Cretaceous chalk laid down 80 million years ago when northern France was an inland sea. That chalk is the same material the Romans quarried to build Durocortorum — the city whose northern entrance was that arch you just left. The underground crayères below Reims go down 38 metres into this chalk, still tunnelled from Roman times. When you taste these wines, you are tasting the geology of the city the arch once guarded.

   🎯 HOW: Ask for a flight of 3 glasses (~€20–30 depending on tier). Ask specifically for a Spécial Club cuvée — this is the boutique's signature, a prestige single-vineyard-style wine made only in exceptional vintages. When it arrives, ask the person serving where the grapes grew — the specific commune and what the chalk profile is. If they offer a blanc de blancs (Chardonnay only), take it: the chalk mineral tension in a blanc de blancs from the Côte des Blancs or Montagne de Reims is the most direct expression of that 80-million-year-old seabed you can drink.

   🔄 BACKUP: If the boutique is closed (check hours above), Le Coq Rouge wine bar is nearby in central Reims and stocks small grower Champagnes by the glass.

   🍷 Log Memory
4. ⛰️ 4

   Descend Into the Roman Chalk Beneath Reims

   Optional

   adventure $$$

   📍 WHERE: Maison Ruinart, 4 Rue des Crayères, 51100 Reims — ~10 min walk east from the arch. Book ahead: visitesruinart@ruinart.com or +33 (0)3 26 77 51 52. Price from 2026: €90/adult (includes 2 tastings). High season (May–Oct): book weeks in advance.

   💡 WHAT: In 1768, Claude Ruinart purchased 8 kilometres of crayères — Gallo-Roman chalk tunnels quarried as early as the 5th century AD, originally dug to extract building stone for Roman Durocortorum. The arch you stood under this morning was built partly from stone pulled out of these tunnels. The passages descend 38 metres below street level, maintaining a constant 11°C — the Romans created the perfect Champagne cellar 1,500 years before Champagne was invented. Today Ruinart stores its bottles in these chambers. The oldest continuously operating Champagne house in existence (founded 1729) ages its wine in rooms the Roman city was built FROM.

   🎯 HOW: The tour takes you down into the chalk passageways — notice the texture of the walls, which are fossil-dense belemnite chalk (the compressed skeletons of extinct squid-like creatures). You are walking through 80 million years of marine biology. The 2 tastings included with the standard tour typically include the entry-level blanc de blancs and one prestige cuvée. When you taste, ask the guide about the relationship between the chalk geology and the wine's acidity and minerality — a good guide will connect the terroir to what's in your glass directly.

   🔄 BACKUP: If Ruinart is fully booked, Veuve Clicquot (1 Place des Droits de l'Homme, Reims) also has chalk cellar tours with booking; or revisit the Trésors boutique for the grower perspective on the same chalk.

   🍷 Log Memory

Insider Tips

• ✦

  The arch is free to visit and beautifully lit at night

• ✦

  Carvings show Leda and the Swan, Romulus and Remus - Roman mythology

• ✦

  Walk to Reims Cathedral (5 min) where French kings were crowned

• ✦

  The Cryptoporticus (underground Roman galleries) are now Champagne cellars