YA-4: Toussaint break III – Rouen, Fécamp & Le Havre !

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Salut!  I’m back with the last instalment of my three-part series about my adventures during Toussaint. This time, slightly shorter.

If you missed the other two, you can find the first one here and the second one, here.

Let’s get down to business.

Saturday the 29^th was a pretty busy day. We were knackered from all the travelling we’d been doing, but decided to make the most of the last Saturday Dad was around. First things first, we went to Aldi with the car to do a massive grocery shop. We were running low on food and it was great to have Dad pay the bill for me and have a car to carry all the heavy stuff like cartons of milk and bottles of water. After that, we headed into town. First we popped by the Library because I needed to print out some paperwork for my house in Bath next year (I’m not homeless anymore woohoo!) but since the centre where I work was closed, I had to find another way of doing it. It was fairly easy; I had to sign a form to use the computers but other than that we got it done quickly and headed towards Cinema Grand Large where the Saturday market was taking place. We wanted to buy some fresh veggies since in Aldi there wasn’t much of a selection. There were so many people it was kind of stressful, but we managed to get everything that we needed. We bought so much food I had to re-locate some of my things in the kitchen because they didn’t fit the cupboard anymore!

After lunch we went to Intermarché to grab a couple things we were missing from the list for some cooking we were doing on Sunday, and then took off to Rouen. The city is about an hour away from Fécamp, so we took the high way. Apparently people don’t like paying tolls because the high way was literally deserted and, to top it off, didn’t actually appear on our sat nav because it was so new. It was quite confusing but we just followed the signs and got there alright. It was, however, utter madness getting into Rouen itself. The combination of it being Saturday afternoon during public holidays and there being a fun fair where the diversions from the high way are made it really confusing and full of cars (and people) in all directions. We took the wrong lane and had to loop around to get to the right place, trying to find spaces between the congested roads. Eventually we managed to get to the parking lot underneath the Jeanne d’Arc church, which was full to the top – luckily enough, a car pulled out just as we went by so we quickly got its place.

This time, we took a Jeanne d’Arc guided tour suggested on our travel book which followed her journey from when she was captured to where she was burned. It was really good because it covered the whole of the old town giving explanations about each place and finished at the parking lot where we’d left the car – ace! First, we went by the Donjon Tower where she was incarcerated and tortured before her trial. The tower is the only remaining out of four of an old castle that used to stand there. The Donjon is very well preserved none-the-less. Then we continued to walk along the streets, which are full of medieval houses, a fact that surprised me because of how modern Rouen is at the same time. We stumbled across a random Cathedral which was tarnished with black from the smog (like numerous other buildings) and then made our way to Saint-Maclou Church. 

It is such a pretty church! All white with a very unique façade. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to go in because a wedding was taking place, but the exterior was worth it. Then we looked for the Aître de Saint-Maclou, which is a cemetery and ossuary dating from the 14^th century. It is a strange atrium construction with a yard in the centre and the building is decorated with wooden carvings of skulls and bones. Apparently, they used to take the bodies of the Black Death victims and bury them in the yard with quicklime and then unbury the bones and store them in the loft. The place is now an arts school but it was such a weird and unique place – there is also the mummy of a black cat that they found between the walls, allegedly there to keep the bad luck away.

After that we went past the monastery where Jeanne d’Arc was sentenced and headed over to Rouen Cathedral, subject to Claude Monet’s famous series of the Cathedral under different lighting throughout the day. To be honest, I thought the façade was way too jam-packed with statues and gargoyles and it just made the building look extremely heavy. The inside was really dark and nothing too special. It was good to see it, but not my favourite cathedral out of the ones I saw over the week. 

We also found a medieval alley just wide enough for a horse to pass through. Our guide said ‘if being horse chased by the authorities, this alleyway would have been the perfect escape route to veer them off’… We also saw the Gros Horloge which is a big golden clock; a building filled with bullet holes that we did not recognize; and the new Jeanne of Arc church which is supposed to look like an upside down boat and has a food market next to it.

Since there were many shops, Dad was lucky to find his crêpe ‘T’ as he called it, that little tool to spread the batter. And I found the best shop ever, a vintage kilo shop. I had to stop myself though because I really don’t need any more clothes (nor will I be able to fit them in my suitcase to be fair) but I could not avoid getting myself a big comfy Wisconsin Football jumper – just to lounge all day in it! I quite liked Rouen. Since it’s a city, there are so many different people and, although you can see there are a lot of homeless people and the buildings and streets are quite dirty, it was full of families, students, couples and old people too. Everybody had their own style and there was that kind of no-f***s-given attitude that I love about London, so I was happy to see that.

Sunday was more of a chill day since everything is generally closed. We decided to stay in Fécamp and take Dad to the few places he hadn’t visited yet. First we went to the Abbatiale, which was open this time. We actually met Liam and his grandma and her friend while we were there… Everybody had the same idea for a sunny Sunday. Dad liked the Abbatiale, which was beautifully lit up by the Sunday sun, but he thought it needed some extra tlc which is true; it is a lovely building but it is full of dust and partially closed off to the public because they are doing some renovation work on it. After the Abbatiale we went over to the Bénédictine Palace to find it was closed until 2pm, so we had to change plans and look for somewhere to eat in the meantime. Unlucky though, because as a public holiday sunny Sunday everything was full to the brim and there was not a single free table. We looked in the restaurants in the beach and by the port – all complet- and slowly made our way back home – even the kebab place was also closed. We ended up eating at home and then heading back to the Bénédictine.

The Palace is so over-the-top! It was commanded by Alexandre le Grand who got rich by rescuing the recipe and producing Bénédictine liqueur. Inside the Palace all the rooms are decorated with a different excessive style – gothic, Arabic, baroque… And there is a different type of collection in each salle: Gothic paintings, religious relics, iron work, hand written medieval books… So, so over the top. We proceeded our visit and learnt how the liqueur is made and got to see the distillery and cellars (we also happened to bump into Lara who works there as a visit guide some weekends – who knew?), before reaching the end of the visit. There was a modern art exhibition with photographs by Michel Lagarde which were super fun and I really enjoyed them. The montages reminded me of the Jeunet and Caro films, unique and bizarre. We then had a Bénédictine taste test. I had the original one whilst Dad chose the B&B – Bénédictine and Brandy. I didn’t like it so Dad drank them both.

Back home Dad taught me how to make a mock paella, more like ‘yellow rice’ and then we met Liam, his grandma and friend for dinner. We hadn’t made any reservations, which was a huge mistake, so we wandered around for a while until we managed to get a table at La Matelotte. The food was alright but the service was horrible, they took absolute ages to serve us! I had white fish with veggies and some ice-cream for dessert. Dad tried the duck which apparently was really chewy and gross, do not recommend. It was a nice evening though.

On Monday the 31^st it was Halloween! Sadly for me, no actual Halloween plans. It is a pity though, because it is one of my favourite holidays. I was woken up at 9:30 by a knock at the door which my Dad answered to: a little ghost asking for treats. We realized we didn’t actually have any candy other than some chocolate, so before I even had breakfast we went on an emergency sweet shopping spree just so we had sweets for children knocking at the door. We ended up buying too many and I now have a ton of candy in the cupboard. It is funny though because the children don’t actually ask trick-or-treat, they just offer you their bag for you to chuck the candy in…

I used up the morning to do some cleaning upstairs and download the pictures we’d taken so I could copy them on Dad’s pendrive and viceversa – I took way too many pictures, and the fact that I had my Nikon camera this time thanks to Dad did not help (great pictures but excessive quantity)… Anyway, after lunch we packed Dad’s suitcase and left for Le Havre to check into Dad’s hotel next to the station and return the rental car. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and all went smoothly (not as stressful as the last time we were in Le Havre, since we’d got used to driving around by now). Dad had suggested doing some tourism around Le Havre but I was quite tired and didn’t want to do a lot of walking so we went to his hotel and had a coffee instead while we waited for my train back home. Dad left Tuesday morning but since Tuesday was a public holiday we didn’t want to risk transport problems so he stayed the night in Le Havre. This way he could rest well before the long journey to Switzerland. The hotel was amazing! The room was super functional and it was all controlled through a tablet: you could move the beds around, watch TV projected onto the wall, control the blinds and lights… Insane. It was sad to leave Dad but I had a fantastic break with him and I’m so glad he came over to visit and we rented the car and visited so many places! I wouldn’t have been able to do so otherwise and it was great to have him around; getting to Fécamp is a pain so thanks for coming Dad! 

After an hour-long journey, I got back to Fécamp and literally showered, did some cooking and chilled on my bed and started sorting out the bazillion pictures I took over the week. The next two days I was still home alone since Monika was still in Glasgow so all I really did was sleep, clean, do an insane amount of laundry, plan some lessons and do some blog work, upload some pictures… basically I had to put my life back together. I also got some random contact allergy with hives on my arms which I’ve been taking medication for but are still there, not cool at all. Plus, it was really hard to get through to the doctor because he was on holiday but my hosts were nice enough to arrange an impromptu visit because my arms itched like crazy. I will unfortunately have to go back because it doesn’t seem to be getting any better…

On Wednesday we had a staff meeting for the start of classes again on the Thursday and we watched ‘Saving Private Ryan’ with Antoine and Vincent, which I’d been wanting to watch for a while and is a really good film. Not the same can be said for the dinner, which was a massive failure. Sausages aren’t Moni's or my thing, but the intention was there…

All in all, I spent some lovely holidays with Dad exploring the north of France; I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did! And I hope you readers have also enjoyed my retelling of the holidays! Thanks for following my adventures!

Zoe x