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| Walking along the Siene River near our boat |
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| A cemetery with a story |
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| Inside the Nortre Dame Cathedral in Rouen |
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| Notre Dame Cathedral of Rouen |
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| The place where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake |
Today got off to a very lazy start. We were able to sleep in and have a late breakfast (eggs benedict for me and french toast for Alice). The four of us then took a leisurely stroll along the river where we watched the swans swimming by. After a lunch of ribs and curly fries, we were off on our walking tour of old town Rouen.
The town looks like many other modern cities from the river, but just four short blocks inland toward the city your are transformed back some 300 to 900 years ago. One of our first stops was a "cemetery." When the town was besieged by malaria and the plague (1700s?), over half the population died. At first they were buried in the courtyard of this area, but they quickly ran out of room, so they built the building around the courtyard, dug up the bones and moved them to within the building so new bodies could be buried. This went on for a couple hundred years until finally it was decided to remove all the caskets and bones to a mass grave in a different location and re-purpose the use of this building in the center of the city. Most recently it served as a music school that recently moved out. The facade is all decorated with skulls and bones showing its original use.
From there we went to see the Cathedral, the tallest one in France due to its high iron steeple on top.. Here in a crypt is the heart of Richard the Lion Hearted. There is a display that shows what parts of the cathedral had been bombed and rebuilt, the original building being built between 1100 and 1300. In 1939 many of the stained glass windows were removed from the churches and stored to protect them from the bombing. Those were either return to their original locations, or used in newer, more modern churches.
We learned of Joan of Arc and her inspired campaign to drive the English out of France. We saw the place where the church put her on trial for heresy and where she was burned at the stake in the public square when she refused to recant that her inspiration came from God.
