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June 18, 2006
Day 2: Rouen, Jumièges, and Honfleur
On the second day in France, we continued following the Seine downstream, stopping in Rouen for lunch, seeing the Abbey ruins in Jumièges, and entering Honfleur in time for a nice stroll before dinner.
Rouen
Along Rouen's Rue du Gros-Horloge. This is a lovely pedestrian street through the old part of this capital of Upper Normandy. Alas, the gros horloge (large clock) was being repaired and we didn't see it.
Inside the Cathédrale Notre-Dame.
The Cathédrale's central lantern tower is 495 ft. tall and is the tallest spire in France. This iron spire replaced one of wood and gilded with lead in 1876.
Rouen is the place where Joan of Arc was executed in 1431. This cross has been erected to mark the spot where she was burned at the stake.
One of the most unique places we visited was a medieval plague cemetery in a courtyard, Âitre St-Maclou, where you can still see the original symbols of death carved in the timbers of the buildings surrounding the courtyard.
One of the carvings close up.
Abbaye de Jumièges
Porch and towers of the Jumièges abbey cathedral ruins. An abbey, of one sort or another, has been on this land by the Seine since at least the 7th century. The structures here now are the ruins of a Benedictine abbey built in the 10th century and consecrated in 1067 in the presence of William the Conqueror.
Remains of the cathedral's trancept.
The St-Pierre church sits next to the cathedral on the Abbey grounds.
Honfleur
You can tell that Honfleur is a boating town. It's right on the Atlantic coast across the mouth of the Seine from La Havre. At the back of the Vieux Bassin you can see the 16th century house where the king's lieutenant, the governor of Honfleur, once lived.
This is the Église St-Catherine, built by local shipwrights in Honfleur to celebrate the end of the Hundred Years War. All the stone masons had not returned yet from their war service, so this is one of the rare churches that was built of wood. It has a very unique Scandinavian feel to it.
As we sat beside the water and enjoyed a leisurely dinner, we remarked on the beautiful evening in Honfleur with the sun setting behind us, illuminating the buildings at the edge of Vieux Bassin. Another grand day in France drew to a close...
Posted by rigd0003 at June 18, 2006 6:04 PM | Travel
Comments
These are ABSOLUTELY amazing! Thank you so much for sharing--I feel like I was there.
Posted by: Yvette at June 19, 2006 8:18 AM
dang, those skulls are SO cool! I have a thing for skulls. And it's eerie to see the spot where JOA was burned at the stake...and that it's now so modern looking, and the spot is sunny and kinda...I dunno..innocent looking.
Posted by: naomi at June 19, 2006 1:40 PM
I agree with Naomi about the skulls. I am always amazed when wooden things hold up so well through the ages. Why the heck doesn't wood stuff of mine hold up like that?
I was in Rouen once. I remember the Joan of Arc thing, of course, but also some other crazy things happened there.
One: Imagine 12 American Teenage boys going into a restaurant and one of them sees "Steak Tartare" on the menu. "You can't go wrong with steak, right?" was his exact words. I ordered the omlette. Eventually 11 plates of raw ground meat and one omelette without any raw meat arrived. I liked my lunch.
Two: Not so much detail, but imagine 25-30 American teenagers having a party in a hotel room the night after going to a wine cave (== we had alcohol at the party). Imagine a motorcycle "gang" in the streets below and a few drunken American teenage boys taunting them. "Hilarity" ensues.
Those are my memories of Rouen. At least I think that was Rouen... :)
Posted by: Allanimal at June 21, 2006 1:07 AM