The Gare St. Lazare was the starting point for our trip to Rouen, historic capital of Normandy. The hour long trip was a good chance to see the country-side near Paris. As the train came into Rouen, I was looking for the cathedral that Monet had painted so often. I thought I saw it, then I saw another church that might have been the cathedral. It turned out that neither of these churchs were the cathedral. We discovered that for a small city, Rouen had a large number of great churches. These churches had suffered heavy damage during World War II bombing, and the cathedral had been hit by a tornado during the great storm of December 26, 1999. Even with all the repairs, the churches are really impressive.
Before going to the churches, we checked into the Hotel de la Cathédrale. This is a beautiful old hotel with the guest rooms separated from the lobby by a central courtyard. The tea room has the charm of an old inn.
| The courtyard | |
| The tea room and courtyard from the inside of hotel. | |
The four churches that we visited were L'abbatiale Saint-Ouen, L'église Saint-Maclou, L'église Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc and the Cathédral. Saint-Ouen, Saint-Maclou and the Cathédral all were under construction between the 15th and 16th century. This is impressive when you think of the size of the city. L'église Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc is a new church. It was built to display the stained glass from the church of Saint-Vincent which was destroyed during the last war. That church also dated from the 15 century.
| L'abbatiale Saint-Ouen. In the cemetery behind the church, Jeanne d'Arc was forced to make a public recantation for her heresy. |  |
| L'église Saint-Maclou is located in a square created by half-timbered houses. A plague cemetery is located in its cloiser-like garden. |  |
| The Cathédral was started in the 12th century but has been under construction off and on since then. The fourth of the small towers, three of which are seen in this picture, fell through the roof during the 1999 tornado. It was a surprise for me to find the tomb of Richard The Lionhearted (King of England) in the Cathédral. Richard's fame comes from the fact that when returning from a Crusade, he was held for ransom in Austria. During that time, the Robin Hood tales of struggles with John, Richard's brother, cast Richard as the good king and John as the usurper. Richard was killed near Rouen by an arrow while trying to capture some treasure from a weak castle. |  |
| L'église Sainte-Jeanne d'Arc |  |
After a salad lunch at a restaurant called Le Boeuf à GoGo (the building had been a butcher shop) and a light dinner later, we stopped at the "Place Net" to e-mail some people back home. Tomorrow we rent a car and start our drive in Normandy with a stop at Giverny .