Thursday
Today’s itinerary was light. Most of the day’s activities revolved around the dining schedule: Breakfast at 8, lunch at noon and dinner at 7.
The only planned event was a home-hosted visit — a Grand Circle tradition. Everyone boards their group bus and are driven out to a nearby area. (Today: the Rouen suburbs) Each group is then broken down into smaller groups of about a half dozen each. Upon reaching their destination, the bus begins driving to and dropping off each mini-group at a different local resident’s home. Here, travelers and towneys have an opportunity to interact with and learn from each other. The language barrier can be a challenge since the host(s) are not required to be fully conversant in English. But usually some liquid refreshment and a local food speciality is introduced as a means of “immersing” the Yanks in a foreign culture. Conversation ensues (it is hoped.) When the bus loops back, the air-kisses and the au revoirs start flying and each side returns to their own insular worlds.
Today, however, I was not up to the challenge. So I remained on the boat and let Rob represent. From the lunch and dinner conversations, a good time was had by all with no international incidents reported. Whew!
The afternoon was our own to explore Rouen…and we did.
First on the list was returning to the old market place and entering the Church of Ste. Jeanne d’Arc to see the 16th century stained glass windows that had been incorporated into the starkly modern 1970’s edifice. The windows had once been in the medieval church of Saint-Vincent. That church was destroyed during the WWII bombing of Rouen. But the windows had been removed and secured, and remained so until they were repurposed almost 40 years later.
They form a massive curtain wall of glass behind the sacristy, bathing the interior in extraordinary technicolor light. Pictures can’t fully do it justice.
Has the man in the moon had gender reassignment?
Sacré bleu!
From there, we went to the Museè des Beaux-Arts de Rouen to see, in particular, their collection of Impressionist paintings from artists who were active in the area. Naturally, they own one of Claude Monet’s Rouen Cathedral paintings along with works by Degas, Renoir, Pissaro and Sisley (to drop a few names!)
However, the collection seems to be a tad light considering the exalted position of Rouen in the Impressionist movement.
during the execution of St. Agnes
“Is anybody there?”
The museum’s permanent collection–at least their displayed permanent collection–leans heavily on religious art. After 10-or-25 rooms, it all got to be a bit much. There are only so many beheadings of John the Baptist one can admire in an afternoon! One room had a series of twelve paintings — one for each of the twelve apostles — including one of Judas’ understudy to get Jesus’ posse back to its pre-Crucifixion dozen. Another had a massive oil painting focusing on the Virgin Mary breast-feeding the Baby Jesus. Not that there is anything unusual or wrong with that–but the prudish American frat boy within couldn’t help but snicker at the sight of the Queen of Heaven’s boob. It was a shameful Beevis & Butthead moment for sure. 🙂
“I’ll plant my own tree…”
And speaking of rooms, the first floor (Reminder: the rest of the world considers the floor above the ground floor to be the first floor) was a confusing labyrinth of rooms scattered helter-skelter around a large indoor atrium. Trying to locate someone you’ve been separated from is a nightmare. I spent twenty minutes trying to find Rob with no success. I did find the bathroom–a lucky happenstance–and a magnificent marble staircase to the ground floor that we had not used to ascend, having been diverted to the back stairs. But no Rob. Giving up, I went to the ground floor atrium and sat in a cafe chair hoping he might see me there from a window above. Lo and behold, he rounded the corner by the ticket desk and we were reunited again.
Our final destination in Rouen was the multi-media show Historical Jeanne d’Arc operating out of the Episcopal Palace–the actual setting of the maid’s 1431 trial. It was informative and exhausting. Informative because the script was largely based on the actual transcripts from both the condemnation trial and the 1456 exoneration trial. Exhausting because you moved from room-to-room for each step of the program–including a three-story climb up a (probably original) stone spiral staircase. At least it wasn’t the steps of Mont Saint-Michel! Breathlessness aside, it was a cool show. And I now know all I need to know about Jeanne d’Arc.
At the end, there was a display that (I think) was trying to make the story of Jeanne d’Arc relevant to today by tying it into three contemporary TV series: Versailles (Netflix), Kaamelott (?) and Game of Thrones (HBO). However, every video, placard and storyboard was in French or German and thus mostly indecipherable to me, so I could be completely wrong in my summation of the room’s raison d’être.
Interestingly, every person who walked in the door with us or after us exclaimed upon seeing a certain prominently displayed poster, “Oh look! Games of Thrones!”
France: Normandy to Paris 