Rouen

Rouen is a very interesting town for a number of reasons. It’s about the size of Harrisburg including all of its suburbs and towns that have morphed into part of the city. But if those towns and suburbs aren't included is about the size of York or Carlisle. First thing that I noticed when I got outside of the train station was that the city was practically dead, this was Saturday morning too. By the afternoon though there were more people around. However, both Sunday and Monday was same story as Saturday morning. Now this could just be because of the Holiday, which I imagine that it was, but it was still a very large contrast compared to the hordes of people in Paris.

Second the architecture is very different from that of Paris. Paris generally has one or architectural time periods, that of the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s. Rouen spans a 1000 years of architecture within one city block. My belief that this is because on May 31, 1944 Rouen was bombed in a pre-D-Day invasion bombing. Over 6000 bombs were dropped on the city. That being said, much of the city blocks along the river were completely destroyed. In fact it is still possible to see the shells, towers, and walls of bombed out churches which have recently been turned into playgrounds. The church that Joanne of Arc was burned at the stake by was completely destroyed and only the foundation remains today. A memorial church has been erected just yards away. The Cathedral was also damaged but has since been repaired. Although one can still see holes and blown off corners on the Cathedral and on the Palais de Justice as well. The city blocks along the river all have been replaced with hotels, office buildings and businesses, so the architecture is all from the latter half of the 20th century. It’s kind of strange to walk from one section of town and see nothing but houses from the 1200s and then cross the street and see something that screams 1990s.

Third is that Rouen seems to thrive solely on tourism. However, Rouen is an inland port so I imagine that importing and exporting goods and commodities becomes the main source of revenue during the tourist off seasons. There are enough historical landmarks in Rouen to keep people occupied for about three days. Then there are enough historical places around Rouen that can keep people occupied for about another three days or so. The nice thing is that getting around Rouen is really easy and if you have to take the bus or metro (yes Rouen has a metro; although it's more of a glorified tramway that just goes underground every now and then) you can get anywhere within the suburbs and city for about 2 Euros. But since you can walk to everything around the historical part of the city, all of the clothing stores, electronic stores, and such have seen fit to set up shop along the way so that now one basically walks through a giant outlet mall between the different historical sites. Therefore instead of the walk taking 5 to 10 minutes it now takes 20 to 30 minutes; 40 minutes to an hour for the pour guys who have a wife and daughters to tote along...I saw a whole bunch of guys just waiting outside clothing stores for hours on Saturday looking about as happy as a dog chained to the dog house on a warm spring day.

Saturday began with me forcing myself out of bed at 5:30 am so I could shower, eat, do last minute packing, catch the Tram, then catch the Metro, and finally catch the Train by 7:50. It all went smoothly. I got to the train station, Gare St. Lazare, by 7:20. Although I had a bit of trouble finding my train at first, things weren't exactly marked very well. Nor did I know what to do with my ticket because there wasn't anyone taking tickets. I found out later that it’s electronic and you have to stick it in a machine which then registers that you are there. So I did that and go on the train. The train itself was an ordinary train and quite nice. It was very fast and only took an hour to go from Paris to Rouen which is about the distance from maybe York to Allentown...I think. Don't take my word on that. I got to Rouen at just a little passed 9:00 am. I walked down the street to the cathedral which took about 10 to 15 minutes.

The tourist office wasn't open yet so I waited. The next three hours I spent just walking around because nothing was open yet. I took pictures and explored. It was really pretty watching the sun come up over the all the old houses and churches. I happened upon a large square and discovered that there was a market set up there. People were selling fruit, vegetables, and all kinds of meat, flowers, candy, clothes, and the like. Part of it resembled more of an antique show or yard sale than a market. I found a park and read for a while waiting for the town to wake up. At about noon I dropped my stuff off at the hotel. The Cathedral was the first place I went. It's such an amazing place and is quite hard to describe. However, all I seem to do was look up. It's not quite as big as Notre Dame de Paris but it's still so large. I liken it to maybe to a large hall from the Lord of the Rings, minus all the marble. It still gave me that feeling though. Perhaps it was the architecture or perhaps it was the size, maybe both. But it is still magnificent. Half the stained glass windows were missing. I don't know if they were being restored, because the Cathedral was undergoing some renovations or maybe they were destroyed during the bombing during WWII. I don't know.

After that I took to the streets and made my way to the Abbey St. Ouen. This too was under renovations and wasn't open to the public. Kind of a letdown, but there is a fairly large garden around it so I walked through that. There were some men playing petanques. It's quite an interesting game that can spur many heated discussions. The French seem to take it quite seriously. I guess it can be compared to horse shoes. Although I haven't known of any real competitive horse shoe games. I went to the Musee des Beaux Arts next. It's interesting, not a Louvre or Musee d'Orsay but it has some very nice and rare Monet’s and other impressionist work. There are a couple statues and very large paints. It holds its own. Next I went about trying to find food. Finally at about 8:00 pm I found somewhere that was cheap. I got lunch for the next two days at Monoprix (there’s one everywhere you go). I spent the remainder of the night, until 10:00pm in a cafe/ bar reading (I had coffee don't worry).

Sunday was really nice. It was cold but there was hardly any rain. I went to Easter Mass at the Cathedral. It was a about an hour and a half. The service isn't too different from the services at Monaghan in structure. I could tell what everything was by the program. I picked up about half of the scripture and sermon. However instead of singing hymns they have incantations (I think that's the correct word) much like the Gregorian Chants. That was really pretty listening to it echo all over the sanctuary. Of course they had the organ in the back booming out the notes which is something to behold in and of itself. After church I decided to get a bus ticket and head out of town to the end of the line and walked around. It was a small residential town that's just a few mile away from Rouen Proper.

It too was like a ghost town so I didn't feel too bad about walking around taking pictures everywhere because there wasn't anybody around to see me being a tourist. It's a quaint little town with many old homes and new homes, but the new homes have an older architectural style to them so they fit in. I found a park and had lunch. It started to rain a little so I headed back to town. I saw the museum of Joanne of Arc, the place where she was burned at the stake (its marked with a large cross and flowers, and the Tower where she was kept while await trial. The tower used to be part of the Chateau of Rouen. A chateau is also a castle. In fact the first chateaux where castles and latter became mansions as the need for them as a defense went away. That night I had dinner at a cafe. I was under budget and felt I could afford it for my last night in Rouen. I walked along the river after the sun set. It was rather cold and not as pretty as Paris but interesting all the same.

Monday was a beautiful day; it was warmer, dryer, and the sun came out. I discovered I couldn't fit a trip to the abbey at Jumierges, which is about 40 minutes away by bus, because I wouldn't get back in time for the train. So I got metro tickets and went across the river. I guess that was the part of the city that bombed the most because it is almost all new. One has to go outside the city limits to get to the residential area which is old. It was really cool walking through the streets. There a lot of old houses and the French are very particular about how their main streets and traffic circles look. There all clean and manicured, not that's a bad thing, it’s rather quite nice. I ended up at the Jardin des Plantes, which is a large garden of flowers and pathways and fountains. It was really nice Monday, everything was in bloom.

Everyone else had the same idea as me though. It was a bank holiday Monday so everyone and their families were there. I can't blame them it was a gorgeous day. I had lunch and went back to Rouen at about 2:45pm. I saw the Musee Le Secq des Tournelles. It's a metal and iron museum. Everything was there from locks to keys to beds to signs to lighting implements. It was really cool because it was inside an old church making quite an interesting venue for all the iron and metal work. I also went to the Musee des Antiquites which holds a lot of medieval era things and a lot of ancient things from the Romans and Gauls. They also had an exhibition on glass work from all ages which was pretty cool. By the time I was down there I had to go get my backpack from the hotel and head to the train station. The train this time was a commuter train and it stopped at every station from Rouen to Paris, which took an hour and forty minutes. Thus ending my trip to Rouen.

It was relaxing and enlightening. What I really liked was getting to see the suburbs and small towns. It's a lot different from Paris and after spending a month and a half living in Paris the quietness and lack of people everywhere was very noticeable. As far as pictures go I took near 2500 bringing my total to almost 8000. It is so easy to take so many. I do it without noticing. My mind enters picture mode and everything switches over. So I have hundreds of good pictures and hundreds of bad ones. Unfortunately I can't put all the hundreds of good ones on here so 10 or 12 will have to suffice your appetites.

This weekend is a trip to the Loire Valley with ISA. The plan is to see two chateaux on Saturday and two on Sunday if the weather holds out. I hope it will. We are going to stay in Tours for the night which, from what I understand has a very nice down town. Of course the next two weekends is spring break. So it looks like I will be out and about for a while. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend and Happy Easter!