rouen.

Saturday was spent in Rouen (largely) and on a bus (not as incidentally as one might have hoped) with a big chunk of the students on my program. Rouen is the capital of Normandy, north of Paris on the Seine; it's France's sixth major port. Joan of Arc was burned there, and Richard the Lion-Hearted's heart was given to the Rouen cathedral after his death. The heart is buried in his tomb there, and his body is in England. The Rouen cathedral is the one Monet painted six hundred million bajillion pictures of, in changing light. I'm sure you will remember this, if you try real hard.

The day pretty much couldn't have been any colder -- next time I decide it would be a great idea to go to Normandy in the winter, please slap me in the face -- but at least it was sunny.

I have no idea what this first church is, but it's lovely. [Ed. note: I looked it up. It's the church of St. Maclou, Gothic, 15th century. Thanks.] I couldn't go inside, because it was locked; there was a sign on the door saying that, after the church was firebombed last October, they decided to close it except for services because they couldn't afford to pay a guard there all the time. Fair enough. (It's also worth noting that Rouen is the first place in France that I've seen swastika graffiti.) There was a man out front playing the accordion, but I couldn't get a good picture of him. Actually, there were a lot of people playing the accordion in Rouen. Who knows why.

Rouen is also famous for its surviving half-timbered houses, like this:

I really like them.

I also went to the Church of St.-Ouen (12th-15th century), which has the most beautiful stained glass rose window.

I thought I had a better close-up of it, but turns out it's blurry.

Inside the church of St.-Ouen, they had these hanging posters (maybe ten like this, and then there were long skinny ones running along each side of the church). They were, as far as I could gather, reproductions of an original map of Rouen. What I liked best about the map was that the buildings on one side of the Seine were drawn right-side up, but the other side were upside down.

More half-timbered buildings:

This is the Cathedral de Notre Dame, the Rouen cathedral.
You may recognize it from this:Monet. We also went to the Musee des Beaux-Arts, where I took a picture of the only Monet-doing-the-Rouen-cathedral painting they had. Which is kind of shame, I feel like they should have all of them, in the same room. That would be great.
Musee des Beaux-Arts:
Inside the cathedral, they had a ton of these statues; I'm thinking they were taken down from outside the church to preserve them, given how worn down they all looked.

Sorry again about how dark this is. This is the tomb of Richard the Lion-Hearted's heart. Just think, it's in there, all desiccated and shrively-looking. Yum.

Bride, on cell phone; with Percheron.
That woman must have been so cold.