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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 14:13:04 GMT
During my stay in Paris I made a daytrip to Rouen. There were several towns I wanted to visit, but I chose Rouen for it’s close proximity to Paris and apparent ease of getting from the train station to the historic center. I tried to study up beforehand by doing a lot of reading and looking at Google maps, but still was not totally prepared. I suppose nothing gives you a better perspective for a place than an actual visit. My train left from Gare Saint-Lazare and I arrived early enough so that I beat most of the crowds. I’ll show exterior photos of the Rouen train station later, but it was a straight shot downhill to a park that was next to several museums. I visited here first and saw a fabulous exhibition on Cathedrals, but photos were not allowed. I decided to return to the museum to see the permanent collection on my way back to the train station, and I headed towards the area where Joan of Arc was said to have been burned at the stake.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 14:28:54 GMT
I turned onto rue du Gros-Horloge and walked towards the site where Joan was burned. I knew a very modern church had been built on the site, but it was certainly not what I had expected. I walked completely past the building before realizing what I’d done.
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Post by tod2 on Aug 1, 2014 14:36:43 GMT
This is great htmb! Looking forward to lots more. I love those old buildings that show all their wooden parts. Can't say I care much for the mod church....don't think our Joan would like it either
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 14:48:26 GMT
Thank you, Tod. I knew I was taking a chance in traveling to Rouen on a Monday. Some of the places I might have visited, such as the inside of this church, were closed in the morning, and some were closed for the whole day. This didn’t really bother me. It’s nice to go inside churches, but I have certainly visited enough others to cause no great disappointment. I turned in the opposite direction up rue du Gros-Horloge and headed towards the main cathedral of Rouen. It's funny to me now thinking about the leisurely pace I set for this day trip. The area I covered was really quite small, though I kept doubling back on myself and think I walked about nine miles. I did sit and observe lots of things around me, and even went into a Monoprix on the main street and made a little purchase I could just have easily have made in Paris. The thing was, I really wasn't overly excited about seeing Rouen. Now, in looking back, I really am glad I went and might even be talked into returning, but at the time I just felt compelled to leisurely wander and go where my camera lens seemed to guide me.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 15:06:23 GMT
The last building on the corner houses the tourist office and is across the street from the Rouen Cathedral.
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Post by anshjain97 on Aug 1, 2014 15:51:50 GMT
Very nice!
Agree, we did the same once on a day trip to Linz, Austria, from Salzburg. Had no plan in mind and just played it by ear. It felt great though, no burden of "I really have to see this" etc.
Agree. One of my favourite reflections after every trip is to compare how I think it will be versus how it actually was.
Can't wait to see more!
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 19:59:07 GMT
Thank you, Ansh! I really appreciate your understanding comments. Here’s the reason I was fairly perturbed about light shows on the front of cathedrals. I’m not sure this scaffolding was due to repairs or because of the light show to be displayed that evening, but I walked around to the side of the cathedral to see if I could get some better photos. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this shop on the side square. Always drawn to the water, I walked down to the Seine. Some of the boats that cruise the river were docked on the side.
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Post by mossie on Aug 1, 2014 20:04:40 GMT
Some lovely buildings here. I do think that that part of France produces the best timber framed buildings and the carving is super.
Always best to let your eyes do the seeing, not be having to find particular sights, let them find you.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 20:08:21 GMT
Yes, good advice, Mossie. That is pretty much what I did. I have more half-timbered buildings to show later. I really had forgotten how much I did until I took another look at my photographs. It was a bit of a shock walking down rue du Gros-Horloge, though, because I heard so many American voices. It was the first time in two weeks that I had been around so many Americans. I didn't mind, but it was just different. Walking towards the river and then following some of the side streets around the city kept me on the move and virtually away from most tourists.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 20:37:07 GMT
Walking back into the old part of the city I can see church spires everywhere. Now, something like THIS is what I really wanted to see. The Monastery de Saint-Ouen. I sat around and watched the local youth entertain themselves. This one boy with a skateboard was jumping the steps around the statue of Napoleon. While others were off to the side, laughing, listening to music, singing and smoking cigarettes. The plaza was in front of the Hôtel de Ville.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 20:59:44 GMT
I sat in front of city hall, enjoying the gardens while also wondering if the sky was about to open up and partially ruin my daytrip. Fortunately, other than a few drops, it never did rain. More half-timbered buildings, as promised.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 21:20:32 GMT
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 21:44:50 GMT
Continuing to wander, I did have a place in mind I wanted to visit. I had some time before the tower opened at 14:00 so I wandered around the area a bit more and found this on the fence. More half-timbered houses were on one side of the street. Along with some art deco and modern buildings on the other. Back to the tower.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 22:13:18 GMT
I’m fairly proud of myself for one thing I did, in four different ways, over the course of this summer. I am not a fan of heights and tend to get vertigo at some point when looking down. I’m not sure why, but it started sometime in my forties. I think it may be related to an inner ear issue because motion/speed make me feel a bit off, too. But this summer, besides taking photos through an airplane window on takeoff from Reagan National and going up on the Capital Wheel, I also climbed two different towers. The one in La Rochelle, Tour de la Lanterne, had a nice sturdy handrail to hold onto and a middle section handy for bracing my other hand while twirling back down, but Jeanne’s tower had none of that. Just a thick rope tacked to the center area in a few places and uneven, very narrow steps. Had I realized there was no view from the top before climbing, I doubt I would have gone all the way up, but up I went.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 22:53:19 GMT
Trust me, you do not want to meet anyone going in the opposite direction on these stairs. Though there is no outside visibility at the top, I found the thick concrete slab poured by German troops during WWII to be very interesting. It essentially made the tour a very tall bunker. There were a few items to view in the tower. This is the ground level. And here’s a model of the compound as it looked back when it was complete.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 22:56:46 GMT
Note the trap door in the ceiling. Now, up on one of the middle levels, I knew what would happen if I opened these doors.
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Post by htmb on Aug 1, 2014 23:57:04 GMT
Back to wandering for a while. Though the train station was just up the street, I elected to return to the Musée des Beaux-Arts to visit the permanent collection, which is pretty spectacular. The museum was founded by Napoleon in 1801, and it’s current building was completed in 1888. Here are just a few of the many paintings I saw. Then it was back to the train station and “home” to Paris. As I mentioned at the beginning of this thread, I can appreciate the daytrip to Rouen now more than I had at the time. It was certainly a day well spent.
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Post by bjd on Aug 2, 2014 6:09:46 GMT
Thanks for this visit, htmb. Rouen is another place I have never been. As I saw the half-timbered houses, I realized that when they made the film "Madame Bovary" a few (15?) years ago, they could have filmed on location with not much difficulty, just removing a few street signs and advertisements in shop fronts. It's definitely all very picturesque.
Seeing the black church also makes me realize how much of a change it made in the appearance of French cities once they started to clean old buildings in the 1960s.
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Post by anshjain97 on Aug 2, 2014 6:57:33 GMT
Great photos! I guess travelling involves facing your fears. Mine is claustrophobia and I hate using lifts, but there's generally no choice while travelling.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2014 11:04:10 GMT
Thanks for this extremely complete report. Even though I have been to Rouen a number of times, I have rarely strayed from the central pedestrian street and the cathedral, so you are far more of an expert about the city than I am! But I did see the Armada in Rouen in 1989. About 50 tall ships come to Rouen every 4 or 5 years, and it is a really stunning spectacle. (I think the next Armada is in 2018, but it hasn't been confirmed yet.) I also learned that there is standing room only on the trains from Paris during that event. I resurrected a little report a few years back, but back in the days of film cameras, obviously the number of photos that I took was severely limited. The photos of the half-timbered buildings of Rouen are stunning, but of course a lot of them are recreations of the original buildings since so many of them were destroyed during the semaine rouge in 1944. Even the cathedral was partially destroyed, and the bells in the tower melted in the fire. So we can all say bravo to the artisans who put Rouen back together.
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Post by htmb on Aug 2, 2014 12:14:41 GMT
Bjd, the black on the church buildings was interesting. It looked like there had been a fire.
I do believe you are right about traveling, Ansh. In my limited set of experiences just in the past few years I've managed to tame a few fears, or at least temporarily set them aside.
Kerouac, what a super experience it must have been to see the tall ships. I'd love to do the same one day.
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Post by htmb on Aug 2, 2014 13:07:10 GMT
Something I failed to mention was the set up for a World Cup game just steps away from the church of Joan of Arc. In reply post #1, photos 5 and 7, you can see the big screen and the tables and chairs all ready for the big viewing event.
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Post by tod2 on Aug 2, 2014 16:42:19 GMT
Absolutely terrific htmb! I was also reminded how the old buildings in Paris looked, all blackened by years of dirt when I first set foot there in 1980. I hope they do a clean-up job in Rouen one day and make it sparkle just like our beautiful Paris. That tower was awesome and extremely interesting - you share a vertigo problem with my husband He goes up but doesn't like it very much!
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Post by htmb on Aug 3, 2014 10:32:05 GMT
Thank you very much, Tod!
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