Travels in France - Normandy

Normandy, located in the north of France, is full of wonderful stories and buildings. The name dates back to the 9th-century Vikings called Normans.

The most impressive city once owned by Normans is Rouen, which was the capital of Normandy. The city has a beautiful cathedral that used to be the place of the crowning of French kings for several centuries. The same cathedral also is one of the symbols of the French impressionism repeated time and again in Monet’s paintings.

In Bayeux, everything is connected with William the Conqueror and his wife, Queen Matilde. The city has an unforgettable 11th-century tapestry telling the story of William’s invasion of England.

In Caen, there is more history connected with William and Matilde – here are two large 11th-century abbeys, Abbaye Aux Hommes and Abbaye aux Dammes, founded by them. The spires sore above the city – the only buildings that did not perish during WWII.

And, of course, the mysterious Mont St Michel is another highlight of any trip to Normandy. Now that the island can be approached by land and you can park right in front of it, it makes it so much easier for you to really enjoy the visit to the yet another abbey.

However, Normandy is not only the beautiful gothic sites. It’s also the place where young men lost their lives during WWI and WWII for our freedom. The land is full of military cemeteries and monuments that list names of soldiers who died on this land during both wars, a somber reminder of what battles took place on these now peaceful grass fields.

Quick Tips:

I usually plan my trips so that I know which cities I want to see and in which order I want to see, and check opening times of the places I want to visit. I send emails to the tourist offices of each city to verify that the places I plan to visit are open, are not under restoration, and don’t have any special events planned. Also, I inquire about discounts, and a lot of times they can send you brochures that are not available through the tourist bureau in the US with valuable information that will save you time and money.

Best Way To Get Around:

I prefer renting a car because that means that I can get to more places and spend less time getting there than if I had to use trains or buses. That also means that you have to be an organized person and plan ahead. I also take a good road atlas (like Michelin) and city maps with me and print out directions from one place to another on my planned route. This may seem like a lot of work, but planning saves me a lot of time when I am traveling, and I get to visit all the places that I plan, sometimes even more than I thought I could fit into my schedule. Renting a car with automatic transmission in Europe can be much more expensive than with a stick shift. So I rent one with a stick shift. Obviously you need to know how to drive manual.

Bayeux is famous for its cathedral and the Bayeux tapestry. The Bayeux cathedral is a wonderful example of 11th century Norman Gothic with original unrestored walls of yellow stone and Gothic arches above arches with buttresses and gargoyles between stained glass windows. Its construction was started at about the same time that the abbeys in Caen and the first bishop of this cathedral was Odon, half-brother of William the conqueror, who is mentioned in the Bayeux tapestry. The Bayeux tapestry was originally intended to decorate this cathedral.

The cathedral is very large and glorious in its beauty and proportions and is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in France. The two bell towers look like fortresses with almost 90-degree sloped roofs covered with stone and ending with a rooster. This design is apparently very typical of the surviving churches from the days of William the conqueror in Normandy. Instead of a typical rose window on the façade, there is a stained glass in the shape of an arch. Inside the cathedral is unlike others: early gothic still affected by Romanesque with circular shape arches supported by heavy pillars with bas-reliefs of monsters, animals, diamonds, and baskets around the contour. Baroque pulpit in the middle is very out of place. Second floor arches are early Gothic, with pointed tops. In some chapels you can find 13th-century original stained glass, some have 19th-century stained glass. At the South gate you can see very light colors of the 15th-century frescoes of Trinity and annunciation – all that’s left of the frescoes that must have at one time covered all the walls of the cathedral. Chapels around and behind the choir have Renaissance painted walls and stained-glass windows with beautiful floral motifs. Above the altar, on the ceiling, if you know where to look, you can see very old and barely preserved frescoes of saints that definitely have Romanesque manner of painting. The altar is impressive in its architecture: 3 rows of pointed arches with rosettes carved out of stone and a small organ above baroque choir. Underneath the altar there is a crypt which is all that remains of the original church. The crypt has well-preserved 15th-century frescoes of angels above each column and in the niches.

Bayeux was the first city liberated in 1944 by the allied troops and was not bombarded. This is by far the reason the cathedral is so well-preserved and has all of its original stained glass.

We landed in Paris, rented a car, and made our way to Beauvais, the city famous for its Gothic cathedral and tapestry factory, so obviously the first thing on our itinerary was the Beauvais cathedral, Cathedrale St Pierre.

We parked at the bottom of the cathedral’s tall façade with a very large rose window and a myriad of buttresses. Parking was, surprisingly, free and easy to find. The houses surrounding the area near the cathedral seem to be Tudors with original bricks and roof shingles (what a scary thought!).

The cathedral dates back to the 10th, 13th, and 16th centuries and has been a national monument since 1840. Above the entrance gate, a beautiful stucco of the tree of Jesse is surrounded by Gothic vignettes. Inside the cathedral, it was very cold, even on a warm spring day. The jewel of the cathedral is the astronomic clock made between 1865 and 1868. The clock is supported by carved baroque columns. It consists of clocks of various sizes - at the top, the main clock has Jesus in the background, and each hour is represented by 1 of 12 apostles. The naives are very tall, and behind the altar, each chapel contains a small treasure: remains of the original frescoes on the walls and gorgeous 13th-century stained-glass windows in some and modern glass in others. Above the altar, the stained glass of saints at the top is original; below, the next level is modern. Judging by the beauty of the remaining frescoes, they must have been very beautiful in the 16th century. North and south transepts face each other, with beautiful rose windows and stained glass around them. Across from the altar is a large, rather modern organ. The cathedral was damaged during WWII and wonderfully restored; however, the original stained glass forever perished.

The west façade is very impressive, with tall, flamboyant gothic towers supporting another large rose window. Amazingly, the cathedral has no bell towers. One side of cathedral is supported by remains of the 3rd-century Gallo-Roman walls.

Another site in Beauvais not to be missed is the Galerie National des Tapisseries, with free entrance. A collection of 17th- and 18th-century tapestries on the first floor is magnificent; they are wonderfully restored pieces that now have the same bright colors as when they were originally made and each fit for a castle wall. On the second floor, you can see tapestries from mid-19th century and Art Nouveau, as well as 20th-century tapestries reminiscent of Jean Lurcat by his contemporaries of the 1950s.

On Sundays visits to the abbey are free.

Caen was the original capital of Normandy during William (Guillaume in French) the Conqueror’s rule in the 11th century. William and his wife, Matilde, founded two monasteries in Caen, Abbaye-aux-Hommes for men and Abbaye-des-Dammes for women.

The Abbaye-aux-Hommes was dedicated to St Etienne, and the church that is part of the abbey bears his name. Abbaye-aux-Dammes was dedicated to St Trinity, and there is a beautiful church, La Trinite, on those abbey grounds. The abbeys are in two opposite corners of the city.

The Abbaye-aux-Hommes can be visited only with a guide. This abbey is now City Hall, and you are shown several rooms and the cloisters. Visits to the church of St Etienne are free, and you can visit the church without a guide.

To get to the abbey, you need to go through the church and exit through the door to the left of the choir. As you walk through the courtyard, you get to the City Hall, with a wonderfully maintained alley of flowers. The abbey and the church were seriously damaged during religious wars in the 16th century. Reconstruction was started in 1628. The rooms that are shown to the public are in the western wing, which is composed of a wedding chamber, sacristy, and reception room, all completed in 1726, with gorgeous wooden panels on the walls installed in 1769. In the reception room, there are medallions and emblems of Christ and the Virgin Mary wearing a bonnet. Each mirror is adorned by grapevine carvings. The king could only look in passing at himself in the mirror, since it was inappropriate to stare at yourself in mirror - Jesus and Virgin Mary are watching.

The staircase next door is unique in that the stone layout and pressure support each stone and there is nothing else to support it. It is made of the same limestone, as is the rest of the building, with ornate metalwork. You are also shown the large abbey cloisters with gardens, and part of abbey attached to the church has Romanesque embellishments. Also in the cloisters is an exhibit devoted to the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII showing pictures of the victims of WWII and of Caen after the war, with 75% of the city demolished and the abbey being almost the only untouched building standing. You see fascist acts, how people were tortured and killed, and pictures of victims of concentration camps Maudhausen and Buchenwald, and hope that Fascism and such a holocaust will never happen again.

Open: 8:15am to 12:30pm and 1:30pm to 7:30pm

Since you have to go through the church to get to the abbey, we started by visiting a church.

Église Saint-Étienne is a very tall, striking church. As you enter, you see a long Romanesque nave dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries, with Romanesque arches spanning three levels of light stone and some of the original stained glass with geometric designs. The nave leads to the gothic 13th-century choir and altar. In this part, there is a Chapel Halbout (13th century) with modern stained glass by M. Ingrand. (Ingrand’s stained glass is in every French cathedral, and it has wonderfully replaced the stained glass that perished during both WWI and WWII.) On the side of the altar on the second level there is a large clock that seems to be seating on a balcony. Chapels around the choir have some of the best stained glass in the church, especially in the chapel of St Etienne – patron of the Abbey, which has beautiful stained glass telling the story of St Etienne’s life, as well as stories from the Old Testament. William the Conqueror is buried here, and you can see the words "Guill le Conquerant, Duc de Normandie" at the top of the ironwork surrounding the choir as you are entering to see the tomb. The arches around the choir are covered with Romanesque bas-reliefs, and 17th-century choir stalls have wonderful wood carvings. Inside you can also see several large paintings of the school of Rubens.

The church has two very tall bell towers from the outside that were added in the 15th century, with tall spires in the same manner as the Bayeux cathedral at almost a 90-degree angle, going up covered with stone and ending with a rooster on top. Underneath there are several levels of Gothic/Romanesque arches.

On the opposite side of Caen (merely 5 minutes away by car) is Abbaye Aux Dames, founded by queen Matilde, wife of William the Conqueror. The abbey was founded in 1059, but the only part of it that still is preserved as it once was is the Romanesque "La Trinite" church that is located outside of the abbey gates. The abbey is a large building with a tall bell tower in the square and the abbey building from the 17th or 18th century, with a small moat in which you can see the building’s reflection. In front is a large garden/park with several exotic trees overlooking the city from the hill.

Only guided visits are allowed inside the abbey every day at 2:30pm and 4pm. The church of Trinity, however, can be visited on your own. The church is a wonderful example of Romanesque/early Gothic. It is made of limestone that Caen is so famous for. Inside it is very bright, with lots of light going through the windows--some with modern stained-glass, some without--and very simple décor with a variety of Romanesque arches, small and large, supported by columns at various levels. Queen Matilde is buried in the altar. From the outside, the view is just breathtaking. It has a beautiful façade with circular arches of ornaments ending in two symmetrical square-shaped bell towers, also made up of Romanesque arches all the way to the top, with galleries at the top visited now only by pigeons.

Tourist guidebooks also recommend a visit to the Church of St Pierre, but you can only see its striking façade with Gothic spires opposite the Chateau. The Church of St Pierre is under restoration.

The Church of St Jean, on the other hand, is open for visits. The church was the only remaining building in the quarter of St Jean after the bombing in July 1944. Now you can see a beautiful Gothic church with modern stained-glass, limestone, and large painted arches that were almost entirely destroyed during WWII and restored since. It has a beautiful façade with Gothic windows and arches, and inside, above the altar, the tall cupola is decorated with plaster artwork in the shape of leaves. The west façade is rather simple, with very few arches ending in a tall bell tower with narrow arched windows.