After the Christmas 2024 visit to Maidstone for our annual festive ‘do’ Mr McGregor and I stopped at Beauvais on our way home and spent a day exploring the town. As I drove back along the A16 that trip I noticed the autoroute sign for Rouen and an idea for a 2025 detour began to take shape.
Comparing distances and driving times it seemed equally doable as Beauvais had been. Plus the cyclist knows Rouen well and took his partner there earlier in the year to show her what he loved about the place. The photos she shared with me were further proof that here was a place we should visit. Our only experience of Rouen was driving around it many times on our way south .
The festive weekend was great fun as always and we took things easy on the Sunday so as to not to be too tired for our mini adventure
As hoped the journey on Monday from Gillingham to Rouen via le Shuttle was straightforward and the weather was bright and dry albeit with a biting wind when we stopped for coffee and sandwiches.
Finding the hotel in Rouen was very straightforward, thank goodness, and matched up to my Google earth images. I had booked the Ibis which shared the Mercure site and car park which led to a bizarre lift situation, meaning we had to find a second lift that took us to the ‘seventh’ floor of the Ibis part which was actually the fourth. Confused? We were until we sussed it!
The view from our seventh/fourth floor room looked over Rouen from the back of our hotel and I could see the cathedral spire by craning my neck to the left but failed to persuade the phone camera to do likewise.
We opted to eat that evening in the hotel restaurant situated on the Mercure – posher – side. The menu was a tad random but we both found things we wanted to try but for the life of me I can’t remember what! The wine from Gascogne was very drinkable and I succumbed to a cafe gourmand to finish. As we left I took a photo of the very impressive cheese display. A couple next to us had shared a platter du fromage which was copious and a bit too much for us however delicious!
Sadly, on Tuesday we woke up to overcast skies and a threat of rain. The helpful chap on reception gave us a map of the city and pointed us to the nearest bus stop just a few minutes walk away. This turned out to be on the edge of a large square, place Saint Marc, with a flea market happening along one side.
Having bought our tickets from a machine (valid for an hour’s use on any bus) we were soon rattling along to the Theatre des Arts stop, the nearest to the Jeanne d’Arc church. As we got off the bus we felt the first few drops of rain. Oh well, it was December!
The church is an odd edifice with a strange roof built close to the spot where Jeanne was burnt. I had read that one theory about the roof design is that it represented the leaping flames. On a grey and damp day it just looked gloomy.
I promptly lost Mr McGregor to the fish stall in the covered market next to the church. Well, it was out of the rain! We had walked through roads lined with beautiful colombage buildings so the church was something of a shock. I decided to hold judgement for now.
We found our way down the wide steps to the church entrance past the ‘Bucher de jeanne’ which in my rainhooded state I assumed was the base of a crane, not the extremely high and quite ugly modern cross. No wonder I thought it was a crane. Next to the church entrance was a gentler, contemporary sculpture of Jeanne.
Inside the church you find yourself standing at the top of more wide steps that drop down to a space with curved seating facing a wall of stained glass on your left. Certainly more colourful and impressive than I was expecting from the exterior.
Looking back I realise I didn’t take a photo of that initial view but filmed a video instead as it was easier to take in the experience that way. Happily, Mr McGregor took one!
You can quickly explore the surprisingly small space as the plain pews and altar seem almost secondary to that wall of glass. In one corner there was a display with photographs and facts about the building of the church. I remember that 200,000 slates were used on the roof.
and there had been archeological discoveries too.
By now it was raining more heavily so it was hoods back up and best foot forward towards the cathedral via the Gros Horloge and, hopefully, a warm and dry coffee shop.
The Gros Horloge, an astronomical clock, had once been the timepiece every Rouenais relied on and it had originally been on the facade of the belfry next door. Its mechanism is one of the oldest in France dating from 1389. I read this later as at the time we were more concerned in dodging the rain, a shame as the Gros Horloge could have been visited in the afternoon. Next time?
We found the Cathedral Notre-Dame de l’Assomption with a Christmas market in front of it busy perfuming the air with cinnamon and vin chaud. But no coffee shop!
Cold and wet and craving my cappuccino fix I pushed open the door of a bar/restaurant and asked if they would serve us drinks, please? Bien sur, was the response so we quickly settled ourselves discreetly by the window while the waiting staff ate their early lunch and we warmed ourselves up.
When we emerged the rain had stopped and there were even a few cracks of blue in the sky.
Threading our way through the stalls we looked up at the facade painted thirty times by Monet. Our son and his partner had watched a beautiful Son et Lumiere here but that’s restricted to the warmer months of the year.
The first thing I noticed on entering the cathedral was the enormous crèche complete with palm tree.
It made the one in the previous church look very parochial. Like the crèche the interior of the cathedral is huge too and fairly bleak, but maybe that was just by comparison with all that colour in the Jeanne d’Arc church. Mr McGregor chose to sit while I took a slow walk down one side of the nave. There were a lot of explanatory labels by each side chapel explaining the age and acquisition of various artefacts. As I approached the altar I was stopped by a church official who told me the cathedral was closing…for lunch but would be open again later.
I had completely forgotten that fact, scribbled down somewhere on a scrap of paper in my handbag!
Despite being midday it was too early for our lunch which I had booked in a nearby brasserie for one o’clock, not being sure of the time it would take to walk between places. With the rain we had not hung around in our usual meandering style!
Walking around the far side of the cathedral from our coffee stop we wandered (now the sun was out) along a very pretty street, rue de la Croix de fer, with fascinating glimpses through arched alleyways between the houses…
There was a place I had in mind that we could visit before lunch now I realised how much closer the different sites were that I had read about.
Mr McGregor is quite used to my dragging him about. He always used to say he was only the driver while I suppose I was the tour guide by default!
We were heading to Saint Maclou church, closed on weekdays, sadly, as it is described as a flamboyant example of Renaissance Gothic. But our actual destination was its cemetery or l’aitre, an ossuary. The word aitre comes from the Latin atrium. In medieval times the word cemetery wasn’t used in common parlance, they were referred to as an ossuary or charnel house.
In the Middle Ages the outbreaks of plague meant the cemetery was becoming overwhelmed so in 1526 the parish decided to add surrounding galleries where bones could be stored therefore freeing space in what became a courtyard ie l’aitre. Subsequently, the wooden beams and stone columns were decorated with symbols pertaining to death and burials.
A tad gruesome, I grant you, but we found it fascinating. A large school group of primary age children were being lectured under the stone gallery along one side and I think we missed out on information displayed there. Reason number two for revisiting?
Lunch was calling by now so we retraced our steps across the rue de la Republique and this time walked up the other side of the cathedral, passing a beautiful merry-go-round on the way…
Searching online beforehand I had booked a brasserie close to the cathedral and I was glad I had as it was heaving when we arrived. It was a classic brasserie of a certain style, lots of waiting staff and a very mixed clientele. We were escorted to a table tucked away at the end of a small mezzanine overlooking the whole of the interior. White tablecloths, which I love, with the complete menu as a place mat.
Mr McGregor risked a Croque Monsieur having been disappointed previously elsewhere but it was very good as was my chicken and chips with a mushroom sauce. Simple choices but excellent quality.
If we do make a return visit to Rouen, lunch will be here!
As it was now after 2pm we returned to the cathedral to finish our interrupted visit.
Around the ambulatory there were several statues, each with their name on signs but not always with their heads still attached. I’d not seen this in any other church or cathedral and wondered why they were here unless they had once decorated the exterior. This cathedral had undergone a lot of remodelling and extension according to the available information.
At first glance I hadn’t thought there was much stained glass but clearly what there was was treasured. I began to feel the cathedral was part museum as well.
It also had the biggest advent wreath I had seen in a long while!
Rescuing himself before he fell asleep in his pew we decided we could manage the walk back to the hotel and see if we could find somewhere for a light supper on the way.
Our walk led us away from the the wooden facades and back towards the square where we had caught the bus that morning.
The cyclist had been in touch and told us he had often eaten well in cafes close to that square, place Saint Marc.
We did a complete tour of it and found what we looking for tucked away at a corner, also nearer to our hotel.
A brasserie at lunchtime but a tapas bar in the evening. We went in and booked a table for later. Then it was back to the hotel for a cup of tea and some reading for me and ‘resting his eyelids’ for Mr McGregor.
That evening we arrived to an empty bar and a young chap (waiter? owner?) surprised that we had booked. I asked him to check his tablet where his colleague had recorded my details including my nickname! Oh yes, I realise you are booked, he replied, but we have a party of thirty people booked in too and it might get noisy. Not a problem, we told him, and settled ourselves at a low table with comfy chairs.
We ordered a mixed planter of charcuterie and cheese plus escargots for himself and egg mayonnaise for me. And glasses of wine, bien sur. So much for a light supper!
The party of thirty slowly arrived with a lot of toing and froing to smoke outside. We played ‘guess the connection’ and finally plumped for a rugby crowd. After a while, when some of them had decided to sit down, a gentleman passing us with his beer apologised for the noise. Pas de souci, I said and wondered what association they belonged too. He laughed and, hearing my English accent, said ‘teachers!’ I told him I was a retired one and fully understood!
On leaving, we reassured the young waiter/owner that the hubbub hadn’t disturbed us at all, rather it made for a ‘bon ambience’ for our last evening in Rouen. It had been a lovely visit and maybe, one to repeat….
promenadingpeacocks 