Rouen

Colorful houses in Rouen.

As Lisa and I finished our contractually-obligated hours on April 5th and as Easter vacation began on April 6th, we decided to spend a week traveling across northeastern France to Brussels (where Lisa has a friend from Columbus) to Cologne to Paris (to meet our friend Chris from North Carolina, who was coming to France to visit us). This whirlwind trip included seven cities in seven days and our first stop was Rouen (pronounced "rwahn" - all one syllable), the capital of the region of Haute-Normandie, "the western Pennsylvania of France." For those of you scoring at home, this was the sixth of France's 21 mainland regions I've visited and Lisa's tenth.

Monet's view of the
cathedral.

Getting to Rouen involved waking up insanely early, getting to downtown Rennes to take a 7:15 am bus, then riding for four hours. The reason we put ourselves through this misery was because it saved hundreds of euros over taking the train (which also involved going into Paris, changing train stations, then coming back to Rouen). The bus ride itself was fine, just long. We stopped at a rest area outside of Caen (about half-way through the trip) and once we had all re-boarded the bus, a group of French customs officers got on with a (very happy!) dog who sniffed his way up and down the aisles then the luggage compartments under the bus. We're not sure what they were looking for, but they didn't seem to find anything!

Joan of Arc's tower.

Rouen is located on the Seine River about 80 miles downstream from Paris and is primarily notable for two things: its Cathedral (of which Monet did a series of 30 paintings, in different weather conditions, in the mid-1880s - here's the Wikipedia entry with about half of the paintings) and as the places where Joan of Arc was imprisoned and also where she was burned at the stake as a heretic by the English in 1431. Jimmy and Jenny left us their Rick Steve's guidebook to France (thanks, guys!) and we used that to get us around for our seven hours or so in Rouen.

Neapolitan nativity scene at the art museum--rather
flamboyant!

The bus dropped us off on one of the busy quais along the Seine and we hiked up from there into the central city to the art museum, ate our picnic lunch in the park out front, then went inside to take advantage of the free bag storage there (one of Rick Steve's tips!). The museum itself was surprisingly large and one of the better ones we'd been to up to that point - lots of Renaissance stuff, lots of French Baroque painting of the 17th century (which I don't really care for) and some good Impressionist paintings. The highlight was one of Monet's series of the Rouen Cathedral.

Plague cemetery, complete with dried cat to watch over
the souls.

After the museum, we followed Rick Steve's suggested walking tour, but in reverse (since the art museum was his end point). We walked to the church of St. Maclou, which, unfortunately, was being restored so we couldn't see much of the exterior. Rather than try to go inside we found the nearby Aître St. Maclou, and old 16th-century graveyard for plague victims. The buildings around the courtyard are now an art school but the wooden walls are carved with skulls and grave-diggers' tools. Grisly, but cool, stuff.

Detail from the plague cemetery.

Cathedral.

We then walked to the main attraction, the Cathedral, mostly built in the 13th century but with much of the exterior built in the 16th century. There, too, restoration work was being on the façade so we couldn't see the whole thing. When we thought about these two churches along with the fact that the interior at Chartres is currently undergoing restoration, we almost wished we were here two or three years in the future when all this work would be done! Inside, a service for the Stations of the Cross was being held (it was Good Friday, after all) so we couldn't see much there, either.

The men of Rouen cathedral's facade, hanging out inside
for cleaning.  Everybody needs a bath sometimes, right?

Cathedral interior.

Rue du gros horloge.

We went across the street to the tourist office, got our free map and a couple small souvenirs, then walked up the street to the Gros Horloge, a 16th-century civic clock tower built over the street, passing the Gothic Palais de Justice on the way. At this point, we decided to return to the Cathedral for the last 45 minutes or so of the Stations of the Cross. I had never been to one before - and certainly never to one in French! (I managed to understand a decent amount, though.) At the end of the service, everyone followed the cross into the choir of the church for the last couple stations and it was quite a crowd.

Crack in the ceiling where the
spire came crashing down
during the tornado of 1999.

Following the service, we walked around the cathedral and saw the tomb of Rollo, the first duke of Normandy (he was a 10th-century Viking lord to whom the King of France gave Normandy as a possession) and the tomb where Richard the Lion-Hearted of England's heart is buried. They also had an interesting little display about the freak 1999 day-after-Christmas cyclone that sent the Cathedral's 26-ton spire crashing hundreds of feet through the roof to the floor of the choir below. We also got to see some of the statues of the façade that had been moved inside and to appreciate just how large they are. All in all, it was a cool church and slightly different in style from some of the other Gothic cathedrals we've seen so far.

Palais de Justice, old home of the Parlement de
Normandie.

A Rouen wedding cake--a
rainbow-striped macaroon tower!

We then walked back to the big clock tower and stopped in a (very crowded) candy store, "The Tears of Joan of Arc," for a snack of macarons and then on to the old market where Joan of Arc was burned, passing a surprising number of panhandlers on the way. By this point, it was getting late and we needed to get back to the museum before they closed to collect our bags. We did, then walked up the street to the train station (passing the tower where Joan of Arc may have been imprisoned before her execution) and bought our tickets for the 6:30 train to our next destination: Amiens.

Bonus pictures: 

Lisa, showing the scale of the women.

Aaron, showing the scale of Aaron.

UK Trip: Edinburgh, Day One

The last stop on our whirlwind tour of the UK was Edinburgh, Scotland. We woke up early at our airport hotel in Cardiff to catch our morning to flight to Scotland, another turboprop plane. (It was in the Cardiff airport where we realized that, in the UK at least, they don't announce the gate for your departing flight until 20 minutes in advance. We think this is because they want to keep people in the main concourse with the duty-free shops where they can blow more money, rather than sitting quietly at the gate to wait for their flight!) Once in Edinburgh, we took the very convenient bus from the airport to central Edinburgh for a half-hour ride.

The Old Town of Edinburgh.

We got off at the train station in order to visit the tourist office for our free map and advice on what to do and see in our two days in the city. We then walked to our hotel, the Frederick House, to drop off our bags (since our room wasn't ready yet). Just walking to the hotel, we both quickly decided that Edinburgh felt like a fantastic city. It's very different from almost anywhere else I've been. The Old Town (the medieval and early modern city) is situated along and south of a ridge between Edinburgh Castle and Arthur's Seat (all that's left of an ancient volcano). On the north side of the ridge is the train station and the New Town, built in the 18th century on a nice grid pattern and full of neoclassical business buildings. Our hotel was in New Town and it was amazing to see how many people were out on the streets, shopping, going to work, etc. The city had a very energetic feel to it and the landscape was also very beautiful.

Lunch in a church basement.

For lunch, we chose something called the Undercroft Cafe, located in the basement of the parish church of St. Andrew and St. George in New Town.It was quite an experience! Basically, it was a dressed-up fellowship hall with food coming out of the small church kitchen and the clientele was mostly elderly Scottish women and a few middle-aged businessmen who must have worked in the area. The food was about what you'd expect from a church basement kitchen - good, but not great. Also, it was Shrove Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday) and the tradition in the British Isles is to eat pancakes on this day. So after we finished lunch, I went back to the counter to order a pancake for dessert (it was more like a crepe than a pancake).

It was while waiting in line for the pancake that I had an experience that confirmed for me that Edinburgh is a great city. Behind me, a middle-aged Scottish man asked the guy behind the counter about the soup on offer that day, something called "crofters' broth." Here's what happened:

Worker: Well, it's a broth....
Man in Line (laughing, to me): Well, I guess I asked for that one, didn't I? (While we both laugh, he points to the sign reading "crofters' broth) It says "crofters'" - it looks like there's more than one crofter in the broth, doesn't it? (Again, we both laugh.) I'm a pompous ass, I'm sorry! (To the worker.) What's in the quiche today?
Worker: Cheese and onions.
Man in Line and me, almost simultaneously, while laughing: No crofters in that!

Eating a homemade pancake on Shrove Tuesday.

After I'd finished my pancake, on the way out, the man came up to me again and said, "The broth was pretty thick, so there must have been a lot of crofters in it!" Then, in honor of it being Shrove Tuesday, he offered me one of the small homemade pancakes that his wife had made that morning and which he had in a little plastic baggie. It was very kind of him and the pancake was pretty good, much closer to American pancakes than a crepe.

The National Gallery of Scotland with Edinburgh Castle in the background.

Following lunch, we walked to the Scottish National Gallery, situated near the train station, and spent most of the afternoon there enjoying their very extensive art collection. We next decided to climb up the hill to Edinburgh Castle. It was quite a climb, but at the top, there were some fantastic views over the city of Edinburgh and the hills beyond. At the ticket office to the castle, they told us they would be closing in about an hour and that we really needed two hours to see the castle, so we bought tickets for the next day.

Lisa on the Esplanade of Edinburgh Castle.

The birthplace of Harry Potter.

 We then walked from the Castle down the Royal Mile (the street running along the top of the ridge from Edinburgh Castle to Holyroodhouse, the Queen's residence in Scotland) and into Old Town. We passed the Elephant House, where J.K. Rowling first started to write the Harry Potter books, and we ended up at the National Museum of Scotland. It seems very much like the Scottish version of the Smithsonian so there were plenty of generic exhibits on evolution, the history of technology, basic forces of physics, etc - in other words, exhibits we could see at plenty of museums in the US. We were interested in the parts dealing with the history of Scotland and, while the museum closed about 45 minutes after we got there and we had to leave, we were able to see some Viking remains and some artifacts from the 15th and 16th centuries. Plus, we saw Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

Dolly the Sheep.

Since she was born in Scotland, on her death, she was stuffed and put in the museum.

The Lewis Chessmen, National Museum of Scotland.

The Frederick House Hotel.

After that, we walked back to the hotel stopping in a Charles Tyrwhitt store on the way, a company I'vebought many shirts from on-line. The store was a bit disappointing, though; they didn't have any of the patterns I wanted to try on. The hotel was one of the nicer places we stayed on this trip. It's a four-star hotel in an old building, but we got a great deal on it on-line. The room was big (for some reason we were in a triple room with an extra bed), we got an actual closet for our clothes, and lots of free tea (we took it all with us when we left).
 

Oatcakes.

We then headed out for dinner and found a great place, Henderson's Bistro, that was entirely vegetarian and organic and mostly local. I had an onion and pepper quiche with a chutney sauce and salad, plus an organic Scottish beer that was quite good. We also ordered oatcakes (a traditional Scottish food, of course) but the kicker was they had a vegetarian haggis which Lisa, of course, tried. It was lentils, beans, oatmeal, mushrooms, carrot, onion, and garlic, served with the traditional clapshot sauce (I honestly don't know what this is!) and red wine gravy.

Vegetarian haggis.

(You can find the recipe for this delicious treat on the Henderson's website.) Speaking of vegetarian haggis, we were both surprised at how vegetarian-friendly the UK is, especially compared to France. We had no difficulty finding vegetarian dishes for Lisa and they were usually pretty good. Anyway, for dessert, we split a very yummy cherry pie with an oat crust. Henderson's was an extremely tasty restaurant and if you're ever in Edinburgh, we highly recommend a visit.

Scottish 5-pound note.

When we paid for dinner, we got a Scottish 5-pound note in change, which said "Clydesdale Bank" on it and had a picture of Alexander Fleming (the discoverer of penicillin), not the Queen on it (as the English pound notes do). Upon asking, we learned that Scotland retains the right to print its own money independently of the central bank of England (although Scottish notes can be refused in England at the discretion of the merchant). Along these same lines, I should note that the couple days we were in Edinburgh came right after David Cameron had met with the prime minister of Scotland, who is demanding a referendum on full Scottish independence. So many of the newspaper headlines were about various promises and threats made to the Scottish pm to get him to not go through with his intention to hold the referendum.

This first day in Scotland was amazing. Edinburgh is beautiful, the weather was good, and the people were very friendly and nice. Our second day, though, was even better and confirmed that Edinburgh is my second favorite non-US city (after Rome, of course).

UK Trip: Cardiff

The Mouth of the Severn.

On Sunday, we left Canterbury for the next stop on our British tour (and the last stop starting with a "Ca"!). We took the bus to London (stopping along in the way in a very strange new shopping center that appeared to be located in the bottom of an old quarry) and then transferred to a bus to Cardiff, Wales. Essentially, we traveled across most of the width of England by bus, arriving in Cardiff mid-afternoon. Traveling by bus (or train, for that matter) is really quite a nice way to see the countryside. Starting from Canterbury, I commented to Lisa that, while the rolling hills in the area were very nice, early English settlers in America must have been completely flabbergasted by the size of the rivers and forests and the Appalachians when they first saw them. By the time we got to South Wales, though, I changed my tune. Settlers from that region would not have been surprised at all by the American landscape! But unfortunately for me, I slept through one of the more dramatic parts of the western English/eastern Welsh landscape - the Severn Estuary, where the River Severn (the longest river in Britain) empties into the Atlantic. Lisa told me later it was a pretty impressive river and bridge.

Cardiff, full of people.

Once in Cardiff, we walked from the train station (where the bus dropped us off) to our hotel, one of the rather nondescript budget hotels that are part of the Ibis chain here in Europe. After dropping off our bags, we headed out to see what we could of Cardiff in the few hours of daylight we had left. Central Cardiff is an amazingly compact area. A ten minute walk is about all you need to cross it. We were also amazed at how many pedestrian-only zones there were and how many people were out walking and shopping on a Sunday afternoon. Maybe we've gotten used to France where everything shuts down on Sundays, but, as Lisa said, Cardiff may be one of the most people-filled cities we've been in.

We ended up at Cardiff Castle, which is a very cool place. It dates back to the Norman conquest of

Interior of Cardiff Castle with the Norman keep.

The house in the castle.

England in the late eleventh century, but there are plenty of more modern parts, too. We started in the house because the guy at the ticket window said it was the part of the castle that closed first. The house was built in the 1870s by the last family to own the castle and it's all in a faux-medieval style with lots of stained glass, painted wall scenes, and dark wood. The dining room had a balcony for musicians to perform, just like a medieval castle hall would have had, and the library was decorated with coats of arms and wooden carvings above the fireplace meant to symbolize ancient languages like Egyptian, Greek, Assyrian, and Hebrew. The whole place was pretty over-the-top, but it would have been quite an amazing place to live! We then left the mansion part and climbed to the top of the old Norman keep in the center of the castle. The view to the south over the city of Cardiff was obscured by all the new construction (especially the soccer stadium) but the view to the north over the hills of South Wales was very picturesque. After the keep, we

Wartime tunnels in the castle wall.

checked out the World War II-era tunnels built into the exterior wall of the castle to protect the population of Cardiff from German air raids. We then walked around the castle green for a little bit before leaving the castle about five minutes before closing at 5 pm. I'm pretty sure there only two people in there who left after we did!

The dining room. (Remember, it's not actually medieval.)

The library.

Euripides in the library.

The five ancient languages.

Wall decorations.

 
We wandered around a little bit and stumbled upon the St. John the Baptist parish church in the center of Cardiff, part of the Church in Wales (their version of the Anglican Church). We saw they had an evensong service at 6 so we decided to stick around for that. We looked around the church, which was very pretty and mostly (I think) from the 19th century. The service was preceded by some fantastic bell-laying in the belfry and the service itself was quite nice. There were about a dozen people or so there and (since there was no choir) a lot more congregational interaction that at the King's College evensong on Friday night. Afterwards, an older gentleman chatted with us, as did the vicar. They were both very pleasant and, after hearing that we were going to Tintern Abbey the next day, the vicar told us about her 70-mile walk along the River Wye that she had once done. Both of them seemed very glad that we were visiting Cardiff and Wales.

View of northern Cardiff from the Norman keep in the castle.

We had dinner across the street at a pub so I could get some fish and chips. More importantly, I had a local ale, Double Dragon, which was quite good and - Lisa liked it! This is a first in our relationship, me having a beer that she actually likes, too. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll able to find this beer in the US so now the challenge is to find a beer in America that Lisa will drink. Following dinner, we found a taxi stand to get a cab back to the hotel because we didn't want to walk back in the dark. When we climbed in and told the driver where we were going, he said it was just a five-minute walk away and that there was no reason for him to take us! He gave us directions and we walked, although I think it was a bit longer than five minutes!

Aaron in the stocks.

Lisa not in the stocks, with Cardiff
behind her.

Most of Monday was spent in Chepstow and at Tintern Abbey (about 35 or 40 miles east of Cardiff) so Sunday afternoon was really our only time in Cardiff. It seemed like a nice city, but by and large, it didn't seem like there was a lot to do there other than shopping and sports (both soccer and rugby are very big there). In fairness, though, we didn't make it to the National Museum of Wales (which is supposed to have some cool exhibits) nor down to Cardiff Bay (which is supposed to be a revitalized area of town full of restaurants and bars and a nature trail in what was the city's old coal port). Still, the highlight of the trip to Wales was Chepstow and Tintern Abbey, which we'll tell you about in the next entry.

UK Trip: Canterbury

The trip to Canterbury got off to a rather inauspicious note. The bus we took from Cambridge to London left about 15 minutes late because one of the passengers had a difficult time explaining to the driver that he had already purchased tickets on-line. We're not sure exactly what happened (we were near the end of the line and this passenger was on the bus explaining it all to the driver) but it seemed to involve several phone calls and repeatedly checking the passenger's smart phone. The driver was clearly annoyed that this guy was going to make him late. We, on the other hand, were just nervous because we only had 40 minutes between buses in London!

Big Ben! From a bus window!

The bus ride lasted about an hour and forty-five minutes and, upon entering London, took a scenic route past the Tower of London, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. We arrived about 15 minutes late and then learned that our bus to Canterbury had been canceled because of mechanical problems so we had to wait an hour for the next scheduled bus. This ride, too, was about two hours long and it meant that we arrive in Canterbury later in the afternoon than I had originally planned, giving us much less time to see the city's sights. However, while waiting for the bus, we saw a strangely dressed couple: a young woman in what I can only describe as a princess dress with a tiara and a young man in a priest's black shirt and collar. He may have been a priest or it may have been a costume, but either way, we have no idea why the girl was dressed like a princess. Perhaps an early Carnivale celebration or something?

The B&B.

The first thing we did was walk from the bus station in Canterbury to the bed and breakfast where we were staying, which turned out to be a longer walk than I anticipated. However, once we found it, it was quite charming. The neighborhood was rather commercial, but the house itself dates from the 1930s and the owners, Roger and Nathalie, have done a nice job of decorating it and making it very welcoming. Roger was also very helpful in giving us directions around Canterbury and telling us things to do. We decided to head back to the city center to see the cathedral, although by this time is was almost 3:30 and we'd lost much of the day. In addition, it started to rain, making it even less pleasant!

Christchurch Gate, the entrance to the
grounds of Canterbury Cathedral.

Still, the cathedral was worth it. We arrived to hear the end of the Saturday evensong service (and I hadn't even thought, until that point, of scheduling the trip so as to be able to attend the regular Sunday morning service) and then we walked around the cathedral, seeing the tombs of a king and queen as well as the "Black Prince," Edward (who was the scourge of the French in the fourteenth century before his death in battle) as well as some lovely stained glass windows. As Lisa pointed out, unlike in Chartres, the stained-glass windows were set much lower in the wall and much closer to the viewer. It was thus much easier to appreciate not only their artistry and beauty but also the visual story they tell. We also saw the part of the cathedral where the chapel of

The Cathedral (obviously).

The Cathedral (obviously).

Saint Thomas a Beckett used to be located before it was destroyed by Henry VIII. Thomas a Beckett had a running feud with an English king in the twelfth century and, after being murdered by the king's men in the Canterbury Cathedral, was canonized. Henry VIII was no fan of this symbol of the church's triumph over a political leader, so he did what he could to destroy that symbol. Because the cathedral closed at 5:30, workers began closing off parts of the church when there was no one left in them, meaning we were unable to see some parts, such as the crypt and the spot where Thomas a Beckett was murdered. We did, though, walk outside a bit to see the cloisters (although it looks they're doing some kind of construction there so a lot of it was roped off).

The Cloisters.

Lisa at the lectern.

Stained glass window, up close and
personal. (Note: windows may appear
bluer than they are in actuality!)

After being almost the last people out of the church at five, we walked around for a bit (sometimes in very heavy rain!) before finding a place to eat, a rather charming restaurant that reminded me of where we ate on Mont Saint-Michel. We then took a cab back to the B&B rather than walk through the rain and the dark.

The next morning dawned clear and sunny. We had to catch an 8:25 bus back to London so we had breakfast at 7:30 (Roger and Nathalie kindly accommodated us by feeding us a half hour before normal). It was very good and quite nice to have a home-cooked meal. Roger also chatted with us a bit while we ate but sadly we didn't meet Nathalie - our hunch is that she was still in her bathrobe in the kitchen and didn't want to come out! All in all, it was a very nice place to stay and I regret that we were there only one night and didn't really get to enjoy the full bed and breakfast experience much. Also, it seems like a place that caters to British tourists with cars so I imagine they don't get a lot of people like us who only stay one night!

The B.

The &B.

We took a bus into Canterbury to save time and we hustled from the bus station to the gates of St.

St. Augustine's Abbey! From behind a locked gate!

Augustine's Abbey, the ruins of a monastery built on the site of a sixth-century century built by St. Augustine when he converted the Angles and Saxons to Christianity. We knew the abbey wouldn't be open yet, but since it's the other major sight in Canterbury, we wanted to try to see it through the gate, as difficulty as it may be! I've been there before, but I felt bad for Lisa because she loves ruined monasteries and cloisters. We took a couple pictures, then hustled back to the bus station for our bus to London. We got there just as the bus was pulling in, making our timing that morning impeccable.

My one regret for this portion of the trip is that I didn't budget enough time in Canterbury to really see everything and the problems with the buses compounded that. Still, I suppose that just means we'll have to return someday.