Rouen is a miracle. Every street corner revealed another medieval set piece, yet alive with shops and people. If Canterbury is a tourist mecca that dies after sunset, Rouen only becomes more itself.
Walking the crooked streets lined either side by crooked buildings during golden hour, I imagined Chaucer stumbling to one inn from another, or striding toward a meeting with a banker, or a prince.
Getting lost is half the fun, and walking the narrow, twisted streets I stumbled upon a massive medieval church that I thought might be Rouen Cathedral. But the lack of signage and the shrugs from workers as to why it was closed soon led to a map – and the discovery that it was an abbey, Saint-Ouen Abbey Church.
I found Rouen Cathedral a bit later, much closer to the hotel than I thought. It was taller, the exterior layered in saints and gargoyles, made famous in the 1890’s by Monet’s series of paintings capturing the Cathedral in different light.
Inside, it was surprisingly ascetic. None of the colour, warm light, middle quire or stepped layers of Canterbury Cathedral. This was a cool, sublime, classic Gothic structure, drawing one’s eyes up to the heavens. With more stained glass than Canterbury (although much of Canterbury Cathedral had been encased in scaffolding).
Walking the streets of Rouen during “magic hour” was itself magical. This was Normandy, and one telling sign was the architecture of the medieval houses, for the beams were exposed both inside and outside the houses. Canterbury had some of this, but every street in Rouen was filled with the style. It’s the style of house Chaucer would have lived in in the Vintry district of London, so in visiting Normandy on his travels (he travelled through both Picardy and Normandy) he would have felt somewhat at home.
Then we found a bistro and ordered a charcuterie plate and the best beer I’ve ever had – the Virgin from Madrid (it was award-winning said the server after the fact). Then as the sun tipped another cathedral in the distance a busker began playing…
Rouen at dusk
Back at the hotel I took a few more sunset shots..spectacular.
Then I emailed my sister for the name of the World War Two historian who lived in Rots near Juno Beach and who had met my father and mother when they had visited Normany in 1994 for the 50th anniversary of D-Day…my sister had been unable to find it.
The next morning was up and out to discover my sister had found the name, so I emailed him and surprise, he emailed right back saying he’d love to meet later that day.
Then it was time to be up and out to find a café and croissant – so good!
Then time for one more walk-about and pack and off on a side trip to the Normandy coast at Courseulles-sur-Mur and Juno Beach – where my father landed 75 years ago. More on my next post…