le 6 à
7 novembre
Our final morning in Bayeux began with a little last-minute shopping for souvenirs for the folks back home. Let's be real: You cannot come back from a European trip without Chinese-made garbage for your friends and family! (Yes, fabriqué
en Chine exists in France, too!) After picking up a few essentials, we hit the road to Rouen, which had been one of my top favorite French cities to date.
To my dismay, however, the beautiful city -known worldwide for being the location of Joan of Arc's trial and execution- was not as I remembered it. Perhaps it was the weather, as France in mid-autumn is much different than France in late spring. The streets -although still rather lively- were less scenic than I remembered. The façades of the exposed timber buildings were nowhere near as picturesque. Despite this, I still found myself as intrigued by the city's history as I had before.
After installing ourselves into a moderately priced and maintained hotel, we set about exploring the items on our itinerary: the various églises ("churches" - Rouen is known as la ville aux cents clochers or, "the city of a hundred steeples."), La Place
du Vieux Marché, La Tour Jeanne d'Arc, the various shops lining the pedestrian streets such as La Rue du Gros Horloge, and -of course- the wide array of restaurants, cafés
and
brasseries.
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La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen was made famous when
Claude Monet painted the façade at different times of day.
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| The interior and rosace (rose window) of La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen |
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| La Chapelle Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc Chapel) features a sculpture of the young martyr being burned at the stake. |
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| A stained glass window depicts the story of young Jeanne d'Arc in her chapel. |
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| The church on the site where Joan of Arc was executed (La
Place du Vieux Marché) was destroyed during WWII, but the foundation remains |
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| A modern church in the shape of Joan of Arc's helmet was constructed onsite in honor of this sainted martyr. |
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| Flying buttresses support the structure of L'ÉgliseAbbatiale Saint-Ouen. |
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| Interior of L'Église Abbatiale Saint-Ouen |
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| Charming buildings at La Place du Vieux Marché (Note the ruins of the old church in the bottom right corner.) |
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| A high-end restaurant at La
Place du Vieux Marché We didn't eat there. ;) |
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| La Tour Jeanne d'Arc is somewhat misleading in its name: Joan of Arc Tower. The sad story of Joan's imprisonment and interrogation would have taken place in a tower similar to this one, though not this exact one. However, this tower is the only one remaining from the old fortress surrounding the city of Rouen, and has been transformed into a museum dedicated to the story of young Jeanne d'Arc. |
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| La Tour Jeanne d'Arc |
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| Winding stairs lead to each level of La Tour Jeanne d'Arc. |
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| La Rue du Gros Horloge (Big Clock Street) is a pedestrian street (closed to traffic) lined with lots of shops and boutiques. It is named for the large Renaissance clock mounted on a bridge that crosses over the street. |
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| Le gros horloge, up close |
Before too long, we had worked up quite an appetite. Although the gourmet food we had been eating for the past week and a half had left little to be desired, my "clean eating" instincts were kicking in; I needed roughage. As a result, Habibi and I set about searching for an affordable joint that served decent salads.
Little did we know that this was the night we would experience a French dîner de merde. (I know!!! Who would have thought that one could find such a shitty dinner in the world's food mecca?!?!?!?!) Chez Juliette (in La Place du Vieux Marché) would NOT be among the restaurants of which the French should be proud. We arrived around 7:45 p.m. (the French typically dine much later than we do, and most restaurants don't even open for dinner until 7 p.m.) and were seated in a warm, cozy corner of a well-decorated dining room. So far so good. We placed our orders and eagerly awaited our selections.
It was at this point that I became suspicious. I had ordered a salade normande, a salad with lettuce, endives, apples, cheese and a few other items. When the waitress cam back to tell me that they were "out of salade normande, I couldn't help but wonder what precisely they were "out of." Lettuce? Not likely, especially since I ordered another salad. Cheese? Probably not; a French restaurant being out of cheese would be tantamount to a Chinese restaurant being out of rice. Apples? Doubtful; we were in Normandy where apples are a major crop.
So what then?
Furthermore, why did it sound like this salad had been pre-made?
Not wanting to make it an issue, I just ordered a different salad. (Oddly enough, it was almost the exact same thing and they had it.) When they brought out Habibi's gratinée à l'oignon (French onion soup), my hopes were renewed when I saw the beautiful bowl of broth, onions, bread and cheese. At that point, I felt that I could even overlook the scant, tiny baguette slices (that rather resembled crackers...or quarters) they had left us instead of the usual, generous slices most restaurants offer in France. Once again, however, my excitement was immediately extinguished. Upon tasting the soup, we both found it bland, lacking any sort of flavor. Even the salt and pepper we added left much room for improvement. Finally, our meals were brought out...the disappointment in the soup soon turned to disgust.
Although my salad was edible, it was tiny (maybe a cup and a half of food for an entire meal), highly overpriced, and -best of all- from a can. Even worse, Habibi's spaghetti was gagworthy, as the taste conjured of memories of the smells of cow pastures. (How someone can mess up spaghetti so badly is beyond me.) The decision was made: we would go elsewhere for dessert.
The disappointment on our waitress' face was evident when we refused the dessert menu she presumptuously brought out and asked for the bill instead. Nearly an hour later (after her cigarette break, bringing us the wrong bill, exchanging it for the correct one, informing us she could not be our cashier though she cashed out other customers, and referring us to the wrong place to pay it anyway) we escaped. It was getting late, and going for dessert and café was no longer an option. Hungry and disappointed, we headed back to the hotel for apples and chocolate.
Determined not to let the absolute dive that is Chez Juliette ruin our time in Rouen, we awoke the following morning to go for a quick run, finish up our sightseeing, and enjoy a delicious salad down the street from Chez Juliette. Afterwards, we decided to spend the afternoon brasserie-hopping and comparing petits cafés, the delightful demi-tasses of espresso that the French sip rather than shoot. It is from one such brasserie (our third today) that I write now.
And with that, I believe I will resume people-watching.
For more information on Rouen, Joan of Arc, or interesting French "mini-trips" in general, I would highly recommend the book Paris to the Past: Traveling Through French History by Train by Ina Caro. (ISBN: 978-0-393-34315-1)
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