Rouen side trip report, late November

Very happy to hear about the Rouen part of your experience, thanks in advance.

Right across the street is a mostly pedestrian shops and cafes area, which gave me memories of Arles and Nimes, just cooler and damper, and the TI pointed me at In Fine, insisting for some reason that "IN FINE" is Latin, not French.

This place proved the most fashion forward food of any meal I had on this whole trip, and it was not at all pricey. Mom and daughter running the place, they put me in the window, and moved at bistro speeds rather than restaurant p a c e. I had a starter of duck ravioli, poised on a small trencher, with microveggies strewn artistically about. Everything 'bio' and local. The duck was shredded like in tortilla soup. Bright and light. The plat was a chicken dish, with poached breast cut into medallions and laid over a bed of what my grandmother would call kasha -- buckwheat groats. The medallions were interspersed with sliced brown mushrooms. And, it was served in a clear glass casserole like a small pyrex or delrin baking pan. Kooky but it worked. It occurs to me now that inside the pyrex, this dish reminded me of those dioramas or diagrams of Roman roads -- pebbles, sand, fill, paving stones, mortar... -- Could this be a Latin joke?

https://www.facebook.com/infinerouen/

As I was sitting there excavating my lunch, I was deciding whether I wanted to go to the concert happening that night at the main theater -- the alt-rock band Tindersticks was touring for the first time in over six years, and they were in town tonight. I had hardly heard of them, but a quick youtubing showed some songs I liked, and it would be another fortuitous moment in this trip to be here when they were. But I was also thinking of a jazz festival that I went to in Orange several years ago, where the main takeaway was that smoking is going strong. Officially there was no smoking in the theater, and the usherette recited that loudly to the section I was sitting in, pausing momentarily to take a long drag on the vape pen she was holding. I had trouble breathing and resented that I had to put up with the smoke in order to be at the live event. Would things be any different if I go to this show tonight?

As I'm thinking of this, I am looking out the window and every table for this cafe has someone smoking. Every one. I realized that if I go to the concert I will spend the whole evening angry. I'm not going.

https://tindersticks.co.uk

I can't head off on the audioguide tour yet, though, because I left the pamphlet/guide/map at the TI. I walk back in and they smile at me and say "you left your paper, no?" As long as I was here again, could they help me make a dinner reservation at the newfangled alternative to Au Coronne for later tonight, a restaurant called Le 6eme Sens.. https://le-sixiemesens.fr
They are happy to help. This place has been mentioned here on the Forum before, and it's another case where instead of the obvious answer of the Julia Child origin story Au Coronne, to instead go to a space with new ideas. Now that I have avoided both the smoke and the mirrors, I can do a walking guided meditation of historical Rouen.

I love guided tours -- a live person is best, sure, but even the TI guide pamphlet is enlightening, and following it is like a treasure hunt. Rouen has a lot of history on top of Joan of Arc and the cathedral painted in different lights. For instance, the tomb of Richard the Lionheart is in a side aisle of the cathedral, no signage other than Latin inscription on the sarcophagus, no velvet rope keeping you from touching it -- nearly everyone walking around with their eyes up at the stained glass passes this tomb without a second glance. The guide gives yet another alternative explanation for the Butter Tower -- Brigitte from Paris Walks had given the indulgence/bribe story, we could see the local buttery colored stone claim with our own eyes, and now we can add the info that the local dairies were trying to get out from under the control of the religious orders

and having the dairymen put up the construction money was a way of asserting money power against church power.

The holiday market in front of the cathedral was set up and running; my review of it is here on the Forum.

Rouen was damaged in different ways than other big cities during WWII, so there are some 14th and 15th century buildings that you can't find elsewhere. Recall also that cemeteries and bone collections were moved out of town as urban populations grew and hygiene started being a thing, but not so much in Rouen, so there is a cloistered courtyard here and a piled churchyard there that show what towns were like when death was just over the neighboring wall.

Audio guides always have a line like "pause for a moment in front of No. 16 and note the alleyway beside it -- the bulging walls indicate a 13th c. structure that is slowly leaning over the alley. Next, we'll continue to the next intersection..." I need more -- every one of these, which would be called impasses in Paris and traboules in Lyon and cobertizos in Toledo has its own stories, and I walked into every one of them that I found. Only once did someone open a door holding a plate of food and a fork and ask me what I was doing. Just taking a look, a few photos, thanks. "Is not possible! This is priveet !" OK, bon journee.

At one point the guide was teaching you to look at the width of doorways and the carving of the pediment over it -- this double wide here with the lion bas relief above it indicates that it was the city residence of a member of parliament in the 1340s... Standing beside me was a couple glancing around with an I'm impressed expression and I pointed them at the bas relief lion above the door. Hey! The man says to me in Spanish that he doesn't speak French. English? Nope, only Spanish. Bueno -- I explain that the guide says this was the house of an important politician in the governing body. When? he asks. Middle of the 14th century, mas o menos. The impressed expression returns. Later in the day as I'm checking out the noel marche I see them again and the man is pointing at the crepe booth and says to his handcuffs-I-mean-wife "Look -- churros!"

The walking tour in the RS France book has a lot of overlap with the official audio guide. You go past some of Rick's recommended dining spots, too. The weather makes a big difference, I think, because not being able to spread out on a patio meant those places looked a little too little, frankly. I got through about half the treasure map before starting to think about getting my id back from the TI -- they had bargained with me some time past 5pm if I needed it but I didn't want to keep them from closing up for little ol' me. About 5:30pm I turned the wand back in, warned them that they would be seeing me again tomorrow, and went back to the Hyatt to get cleaned up for dinner.

When the ticket taker worked his way down the row most people held up
their phone to show a QR code. Hmmm...

I often wonder if you need to be a certain age that is considerably younger than me for it to be obvious that ticket counters and kiosks are not the most effective way to buy a ticket.