France City  -  Rouen  -  Rouen Attractions

Other famous structures include:

• The Gothic Church of Saint Maclou (15th century)
• The Tour Jeanne d'Arc, where Joan of Arc was brought in 1431 to be threatened with torture (contrary to popular belief, she was not imprisoned there)
• The Church of Saint Ouen (12th–15th century)

Abbey church of Saint-Ouen, (chevet) in Rouen

• The Palais de Justice, which was once the seat of the Parlement (French court of law) of Normandy
• The Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics which contains a splendid collection of faïence and porcelain for which Rouen was renowned during the 16th to 18th centuries.

Rouen is noted for its surviving half-timbered buildings.

Rouen, medieval house

In the centre of the Place du Vieux Marché is the modern church of Saint Joan of Arc.

This is a large, modern structure which dominates the square. The form of the building represents the pyre on which Joan of Arc was burnt.

Other historic structures popular with tourists include the Law Court, the Vauban Site, Chapel St-Michelle d'Ingouville, Palais de Justice.

Notre Dame cathedral    

Rouen Cathedral is a Gothic cathedral in Rouen, in northwestern France. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Rouen.

Rouen Cathedral contains a tomb of Richard the Lionheart which contains his heart.

Rouen Cathedral

His bowels were buried at the foot of the tower in Limousin, France, from which was fired the crossbow bolt which killed him, and the rest of his remains were buried next to his father at Fontevraud Abbey near Chinon and Saumur, France.

Richard's effigy is on top of the tomb, and his name is inscribed in Latin on the side.

The entrance to Rouen Cathedral

Rouen Cathedral was the tallest building in the world from 1876 to 1880.

The cathedral was bombed in 1944, taking several direct hits that narrowly missed destroying key pillars.

Rouen Cathedral, Full Sunlight, by Claude Monet, 1894

In Art:

• The Cathedral was the subject for a series of paintings by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet who painted the same scene at different times of the day.
• Gustave Flaubert was inspired by the stained glass windows of St. Julian and of Salome, basing two of his Three Tales on them.
• Joris-Karl Huysmans wrote La Cathédrale about the Cathedral, a novel based on an intensive examination of the building.

Credits : This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Rouen".