Rue de Vesle - a quiet shopping street

The street with its art deco houses, the beautiful shops and the slowly passing trams radiate a tranquility that you will hardly find anywhere else and that in the middle of the city. Just let yourself drift.

One of Reims' most vibrant pedestrian streets, connecting the city center to the Vesle River and serving as a major commercial thoroughfare since the inauguration of the tram system in 2011. The street follows part of the ancient Roman decumanus maximus, the main east-west road of the Gallo-Roman city, though it was heavily destroyed during World War I and rebuilt with notable Art Deco architecture. Today it houses significant buildings including the Opera de Reims and several remarkable Art Deco structures like the Galeries Lafayette department store.

The street was originally called "rue de la Porte-aux-Ferrons" (Street of the Iron Gate) and the Galeries Lafayette building had to be rebuilt in 1933 after a fire destroyed its original roofline, replacing broken pavilion roofs with imperial-style domes.