We arrived here around 2 AM on the 14th (we
weren’t awake to see it) and we’re here for 2 days. This morning dawned cloudy, windy and pretty chilly. Eventually it got up to 63° but with
the wind it felt much colder.
As an aside, the systems are still not totally fixed on the
ship. The phones don’t work so no
wake-up calls. The TV works
intermittently. This was
apparently a major hack which is taking time to sort out.
Rouen is the capital of Normandy and currently has a
population of about 113,000. It has a very long history. During the Middle Ages it was variously
under Norman, French and English control.
During the Hundred Years
War in the 15th century it returned to English control from the
French. It was in Rouen that Joan
of Arc, who had been captured by the Duke of Burgundy and sold to the English,
was tried for heresy and burned at the stake. Decades later her trial was examined and she was declared innocent (too late to
save her obviously) and in the early 20th century she was canonized
and became St. Joan of Arc. She is considered a national symbol of France.
So after breakfast we took the shuttle bus for the short
ride to the center of the old city.
It was a short walk to the Cathedral which was one of the things I most
wanted to see. Monet painted the
façade many times in different lights and it was incredible to see it in the
flesh, so to speak. The cathedral
was begun in the 12th century and with fires, additions etc work on
it continued for a couple of centuries.
During WW II it was bombed a couple of times by both British and Us
forces and portions were destroyed.
The building’s exterior has hundreds of figures of what I’m guessing
must be saints carved on the walls.
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| The Gros Horloge, a 14th century astronomical clock over an arch near the entrance to the cathedral square |
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| Gros Horloge close-up |
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| Rouen Cathedral |
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| Close-up of the façade |
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| Another close-up of the façade (Can you tell I love this building?) |
Unfortunately for us on Monday many things are closed
including the cathedral until later in the day. We took a little tourist train through the old city and got
to see many old half-timbered buildings and narrow streets. After we got off the train the wind had
really picked up and it was cold and looked like rain any moment. We went to the square around the old
market. This is the place where
Joan of Arc was actually burned at the stake. We found a café and decided to have lunch.
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| A few of the many half-timbered houses in the old city |
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| Vieux Marché (this is the market we went to on our second day in Rouen |
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| Cross at the Vieux Marché marking the spot on which Joan of Arc was burned |
The restaurant was a seafood place and the food was great,
but too much food. The other thing
is that the French love to use butter in their cuisine so everything was
incredibly rich. After a nice
lunch with a house wine served in a ceramic jug we decided that since the
weather hadn’t improved it was time to take the shuttle back to the ship. We were actually so full that we
changed our dinner plans and had only a very light meal around 8:30 PM.
Tuesday morning (the 15th) we were scheduled to
go shopping with the Chef, always a fun event. Since the phone system still doesn’t work, we had to figure
out another way to wake up at the right time. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I have never used my
iPhone for an alarm clock so it took me a while to figure that out. We also asked at Seabourn Square (guest
services for a wake-up knock at the door which is what they are doing since the
system crash). We didn’t sleep
well because we weren’t sure of either wake-up method. The iPhone worked out well; the knock
on the door came an hour late.
So at 9:15 we met in the main dining room and 20 of us set
off in a bus with Chef Chris. This
chef is one who looks like he enjoys his cooking, always a good thing in my
opinion. Who can trust a skinny
chef? The bus driver brought us to
a drop-off point for what was supposed to be the main market and gave us
directions to get there. Perhaps
the driver wasn’t really from Rouen because we wound up walking in a circle
almost back to where we started where we found the Old Market where Joan of Arc
was burned and we had eaten yesterday.
Mind you we were a group of 20 trotting along a narrow sidewalk with a
couple of galley staff following us with a cart to carry what the chef bought
and a big plastic bin with ice for any cold things. The locals really looked us over.
The market was quite small; I can’t believe it is THE market for Rouen. There were some nice produce stands, a
lovely fish vendor and a great cheese stand. I think we made their day. Chef Chris bought all the sea bream at the fish stand. At the cheese place we got to sample 4
or 5 cheeses and then he bought boxes of them along with a bunch of quail
eggs. At the produce stands we
sampled cherries and he cleaned out their supply of those and strawberries
too. At the last produce stand he
bought all their tomatoes and cucumbers.
When we were finished, the cart was overflowing and we paraded back to
the bus with the last produce stand guy leading the way with a dolly stacked as
high as he was tall with boxes of tomatoes and cucumbers.
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| A lovely produce stand. The chef basically bought out the stand |
The shopping trip took up the morning. We thought about going back into town
in the afternoon, but tomorrow is our last day and we have an all-day tour
booked to the D-Day sights in Normandy.
We decided the smart thing to do was pack most things instead of rushing
after a long day ashore tomorrow.
We didn’t think Rouen was as pretty a place as some of the
other stops along the way. I would
like to come back though because we really didn’t get to see all that
much. I wanted to get to Giverny
and see Monet’s house and garden but yesterday the weather didn’t really
cooperate. As it turns out some of
our fellow cruisers went and said while it was lovely it did rain while they
were there. There will just have
to be another trip to Normandy in our future.
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