Day 5 of Paris 2022
One of the best parts of our November trip to Amsterdam was the couple of day trips we scheduled. The benefit of having been to a city a couple of times is you know what you HAVE to see and what you can pass on, freeing up more time in your itinerary. Adding a trip outside of your main stop allows you to get a feeling for the wider country, rather than the one city you're in. For us, visiting Utrecht and Gouda in the Netherlands really flushed out our experience there. In a way that just staying in Amsterdam might not have. So on this trip to Paris, we decided to add in a day outside of the city and, after budgeting and looking at time investment, decided to visit the city of Rouen.
If you don't know anything about the city, it's an ancient one in northwest France with a population about 100,000. The city has been around since before the country of France existed. Famous for being the city where Joan of Arc was murdered by the English, it has beautiful winding streets, charming ancient buildings, and a cathedral that rivals any in Europe. Pair all that history and charm with a host of great shopping spots and yeah, it made a great spot for a day trip.
This morning we woke early to make our 8a train from St. Lazare station. The walk to the station was about 35 minutes, but in the rush of getting 7 people out and ready we didn't make our train. Missed it by almost 10 minutes. Thankfully, there was another train just 25 minutes later, so we purchased more tickets and got on that one instead. The ride to Rouen went through the countryside and was about an hour and a half, allowing time to nap, sightsee, or staring into space.
As we exited the train station in Rouen, we spotted a pointy tower to the left and I made a beeline for it. It was clearly ancient, both because of its look but also because of the scale. It was large but not shockingly large. A stand-alone tower with a moat around it. As we stood outside it, trying to piece together its significance, we read that it was the tower where Joan of Arc was tortured before her execution.
I've written before about my love of the ancient, human-used, parts of history/archeology/architecture. But to stand next to a building where 800 years before, Joan of Arc stood, facing her torture and execution, boggles my mind. It's not that I'm such a massive fan of Joan of Arc, but the historical significance of the person and place is not lost on me and my love of history.
We made our way deeper into the city and came to the Palais de Justice. A massive and beautiful building. The outside stone of the building was pockmarked all over and at first I thought it was part of the design. However, after a few moments of discussion, we realized it was from WWII shelling. The building had been riddled with bullets and shrapnel and yet it stood. Around the corner of one side, we noticed that someone had decorated some of the cracks with legos blocks. Afterwards, we did some research and discovered it was done by a German artist, Jan Vormann, who travels the world doing these type of installations. It was a cute and interesting way to fill the gaps, without changing the structure of the building.
Rouen is known for its Primatial Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Rouen and what a structure it is. Originally consecrated in 1063 (with William the Conqueror present) it is a church on a mind-boggling scale. You can feel the awe that people must have felt over the last 1,000 years. I am struck by how non-educated, pre-mechanization, pre-modern society people must have felt seeing a structure like this. It's astounding to us now, I can't imagine how it must have been for the generations before. Sadly, while we were here, there were renovations happening in half the building, leaving that part inaccessible for visitors. We saw what we could see then made our way down a beautiful medieval street.
The street we were on featured an old clock from the 1300s, stunning in scale and beauty. It's just another thing in this amazing city. It's just easy to get overwhelmed to the point of numbness, when surrounded by so many ancient and beautiful things. As we walked down the street, we passed shops, both local and international. The blending of the ancient and the modern is one of the interesting aspects of this country, where all the real estate has been occupied and built on for thousands of years. It's a beautiful thing.
We purchased coffee from a bike-powered cart and then walked through a fish market to the Église Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc (Church of Joan of Arc), built on the exact spot where she was killed in 1431. It's a very modern and artistic structure that stands in contrast to very ancient structures that fill Rouen around it. The place where Joan of Arc died is marked by a small plaque next to a round, stone-lined, spot in the ground. The church was closed when we visited.
After, we went wandering the streets looking for lunch and passed a used book shop. I went inside looking for a copy of a book from Camus, a French author, in French. I found Le Peste (The Plague) and the bookseller seemed thrilled at my reasoning. He inserted a small postcard with a drawing of his shop on it. I thanked him and we walked down the street to lunch.
Le Bistrot d'Arthur is just off the square in Rouen. We were all seated at a long table and when I opened the menu I decided to do something I have never done in France: order new things at every opportunity. I ordered snails as my appetizer (reminded me of chewy mushrooms, but good!) and duck for my main (delicious). I even ordered a white wine with my meal, because I'm in France, dang it! We all enjoyed the food and company and had an amazing time. It was a highlight of this trip, this meal in Rouen.
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