As you may have noticed, 2018 was a year of in-depth discovery of the beautiful region of Normandy for me, as I visited several times and wrote many articles on the subject. I couldn’t miss a focus on the metropolis of Rouen, which is the capital of Normandy, with its rich past and incredible historical heritage through a very varied museum offer.
To start with, the city has a very strong maritime identity with its riverbanks and its river, even though it is located about 70 km from the sea! But thanks to the meanders of the Seine flowing through it, it remains an important seaport. By the way, for the record, the port of Rouen was the most important in the Kingdom of France in the 16th century!
The city, also known as “the city of a hundred steeples,” has been marked by history in every era. It was notably the city where, during the Hundred Years’ War, Joan of Arc was tried in 1431 (as it was the capital of the English occupier at the time) and burned alive. You can even see a large cross erected by the city at the site of Joan of Arc’s execution, right next to the current covered market.
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Table of Contents
Practical Information for visiting Rouen
It is very easy to get to Rouen from Paris by train from Saint-Lazare station (about a 1h10 journey).
Once there, for all practical information, I recommend you visit the tourist office, which is located in a beautiful historic building in front of the cathedral.
To learn a little more about the city’s history before your trip (or even after), I recommend this book by Isabelle Renault, “Discovering Rouen” (published in 2020 by Editions du Panthéon / €20.90), which offers a guided tour of the historic capital of Normandy.
Rouen Normandy Tourism & Convention Bureau
25 place de la Cathédrale 76000 Rouen
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What to see and do in Rouen?
Exploring the city’s historic center is obviously a must-do if you are coming to Rouen for the first time. You can also opt for a walking tour with a guide from the Tourist Office if you want to learn even more about the history and evolution of the city.
The heart of the medieval city center is definitely worth discovering, even if part of it was bombed during the Second World War. Rouen is richly endowed with half-timbered houses, the oldest of which date from the 14th century, although they continued to be built until the 19th century.
I also advise you to take a walk along the pedestrian street Eau-de-Robec, where drapers and dyers lived in the Middle Ages. A little further on, you will also find the free National Education Museum, which I will tell you more about below in the “museums” section.
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Visit the Historial Jeanne d’Arc
I more than strongly recommend that you make this visit during your time in the city. It is extremely well done and absolutely fascinating.
Immersed in the heart of the 15th century through very successful audiovisual effects, we bear witness, through a theatrical journey, to the investigation conducted for the rehabilitation trial of Joan of Arc in 1456.
Open since 2015, this place allows you to relive the epic of Joan of Arc in a particularly enriching way, and in a historic monument, the Archbishop’s Palace, the exact place where the judges delivered their sentence condemning Joan.
I also really enjoyed the mythotheque at the end of the visit, a multimedia space that allows you to understand how the myth of Joan of Arc was constructed. The interviews with researchers specializing in this topic are particularly interesting and enlightening.
7 rue Saint Romain 76000 Rouen
Open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 7 pm
Rates: €11.50 / Reduced €8.50 / free under 6
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Go for a Rosalie ride on the quays
Here is an original, fun, and athletic way to pace the pretty quays of the Seine on the Rouen left bank (recently renovated), aboard a Rosalie, those little pedal cars. Some of these small carts have 3 seats and others 6 seats.
This nice 3 km stroll along the quays will take about 1 hour if you take your time to wander and take some photos like we did.
Rates: €10 for half an hour for 3-seaters and €15 for 6-seaters / €15 per hour for 3-seaters and €25 for 6-seaters
Rosalie ride with Rosa Rouen
At the foot of the Corneille bridge (quai Saint-Sever), 76000 Rouen
The route: from the Corneille bridge to the Rollet peninsula (about 1 hour)
Rental available daily in July/August and weekends/public holidays from May to September
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Visit the city’s museums
The city has several very beautiful museums, so I recommend you take advantage of your time in the city to discover some of them, especially since most are completely free! So there’s no reason to miss out!
I suggest you discover two museums in Rouen in pictures below, which we took the time to visit with my favorite photographer.
Also see among free museums: Natural History Museum; Antiquities Museum; National Education Museum, Pierre Corneille House, Architecture House
Pro tip: the permanent collections of the 8 museums in the city are free!!!
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Museum of Fine Arts of Rouen
This museum has a magnificent collection (notably of impressionist canvases) that I strongly advise you to go and discover, which resonates perfectly with the visit to La Bouille that I also recommend you do, a little further down in the article (in the “visiting the surroundings of Rouen” section).
It is also worth a visit for its magnificent 19th-century architecture, which we owe to architect Louis Sauvageot, notably the very beautiful inner courtyard under a glass roof where the establishment had the good idea to install its café, the MBA café.
26 bis rue Lecanuet 76000 Rouen
Open daily except Tuesday from 10 am to 6 pm
Permanent exhibition free for everyone
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Museum of Ironwork, Le Secq des Tournelles in Rouen
This unusual museum housed in a 15th-century desacralized Gothic church is really worth a look. It presents the most important public collection of ancient ironwork in the world (about 16,000 objects) and is dedicated to the iron arts.
This collection is the work of an enthusiast, Jean-Louis Henri Le Secq Destournelles (1818-1882), a pioneer of photography, who was commissioned to photograph historic monuments in the 19th century and collected the ironwork that was about to be destroyed by Haussmann during his great works, and also of his son Henri-Jean Le Secq des Tournelles (1854-1925). The latter offered his father’s collection, which he had continued, to the city of Rouen in 1917. The museum was inaugurated in the former Saint-Laurent church in 1921. And the whole collection gathered now counts more than fifteen thousand pieces.
Museum of Ironwork, Le Secq des Tournelles
2 rue Jacques Villon 76000 Rouen
Open daily except Tuesday from 2 pm to 6 pm
Permanent exhibition free for everyone
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The Ceramics Museum of Rouen
This museum has a rich collection of more than 5,000 works that provides an overview of Rouen earthenware from the 16th to the 18th century, as Rouen was one of the great European centers for earthenware.
We didn’t have time to visit it during this stay, but I recommend it too because I had visited it during a previous stay in Rouen a few years ago.
Ceramics Museum
1 rue Faucon 76000 Rouen open every day except Tuesday from 2 pm to 6 pm
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Attend the Cathedral of Light show
The Gothic Notre-Dame Cathedral of Rouen is a jewel of architecture, and its visit is obviously a must for discovering the city.
And if you want to discover it in a slightly more original way, the city offers a free show on summer evenings with monumental projections that animate the cathedral facade, telling the story of William the Conqueror or the arrival of the Vikings in Norman land.
For information, this show takes place every summer evening between June and September at nightfall on the cathedral forecourt.
Cathedral of Light
Place de la Cathédrale 76000 Rouen
Free sound and light show on summer evenings
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My top places to visit in Rouen
As usual, I am sharing the few great addresses that I had the opportunity to test on site (a hotel and a few restaurants).
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Where to stay? Hotel Mercure Rouen Centre
This super central 4-star hotel is ideally located a stone’s throw from the cathedral, making it an excellent choice for exploring the city on foot if you come without a car, for example.
The little extra: the streets around the hotel are essentially pedestrian, which allows for a lot of quiet in the hotel (yes, I am super sensitive to noise and this is therefore an important point for me concerning hotels, so that I can sleep well)
Double room rates: from €106
Hotel Mercure Rouen Centre Cathédrale ****
7 rue Croix de Fer 76000 Rouen
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Restaurant In Situ
This establishment is ideally located right next to the Verdrel square and the city’s Museum of Fine Arts, which I mentioned earlier. This can be a good option for a lunch break in the middle of a visit, for example.
As for the plates, you will find very original bistronomic cuisine with combinations of flavors handled with finesse.
35 rue Jean Lecanuet 7600 Rouen open every day from 10 am to 10 pm except Sunday
The little extra: the venue also has a terrace for sunny days
Menus: between €14.50 and €19 / dish of the day at €11 / wines by the glass between €4 and €8
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Restaurant la Marmite
This establishment, which has existed since 1989, breaks the codes of traditional catering a bit, since here it is Frédérique Antoine who is in the kitchen while her husband, Jean-Luc, serves in the dining room. In addition, the restaurant is ideally located right next to the Place du Vieux Marché (the former “belly” of the city).
On the plates, we find feminine and gourmet cuisine with beautiful presentation and a lot of finesse in the flavor combinations, once again.
A must-try to accompany the meal: the delicious local farm cider from the Pays de Bray, from the Duclos Fougeray estate.
3 place du Vieux-Marché 76000 Rouen
Friendly traditional brasserie in the heart of the place du Vieux-Marché
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Things to do around Rouen
If you are by car (or even by bike, remember my articles on Normandy by bike!), I also invite you to explore the surroundings of the city a little bit because there are very beautiful places to discover and visit, notably on what is called the fruit route. I suggest a few below!
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Visit the village of La Bouille
This region is also the Land of Impressionism, a pictorial movement of the second half of the 19th century that emerged precisely in Normandy.
The small picturesque village of La Bouille, which is located between the banks of the Seine and large chalk cliffs, has inspired many painters of this period, including Gauguin, Sisley, Turner… It is also the birthplace of the writer Hector Malot, author of the novel “Nobody’s Boy”.
My pro tip: take the ferry (which is free) to go to the other side of the bank and admire La Bouille in its entirety.
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Lunch at the gourmet restaurant Le Saint-Pierre
This high-flying gourmet restaurant could alone be worth the trip to this small village, but I think the appeal of both gives an excellent reason for a small day trip in the area.
Hôtel Restaurant Le Saint-Pierre
4 Place du Bateau 76530 La Bouille
Refined gourmet Norman cuisine on the banks of the Seine
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Visit the Abbey of Saint-Georges de Boscherville
This complex has a Romanesque abbey church, a monastic enclosure with a chapter house that contains capitals from the 12th century, and a Remarkable Garden-labeled garden.
It was Guillaume de Tancarville who founded a Benedictine abbey on this site in the 11th century and who had the current abbey church built.
Not to be missed: go all the way to the top of the garden to enjoy the panoramic view of the Seine valley
The pro tip: there are free guided tours on weekends (different times and dates depending on the time of year)
Abbey Saint-Georges de Boscherville
12 route de l’Abbaye 76840 Saint-Martin de Boscherville
Open daily except certain public holidays
Rates: €6.50 (April-October) / €5.50 (November-March) / reduced €4.50
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Thanks to Killian and the Rouen Tourist Office for this invitation and this welcome!
I hope that with all this I will have made you want to discover or rediscover Rouen and its surroundings, and if you too have your great addresses for this destination, don’t hesitate to share them in the comments!
Find all my articles on the Normandy region below:
⇒ All my articles on Normandy
MY ARTICLES ON THE DEPARTMENTS OF NORMANDY
⇒ The Orne
⇒ The Seine Maritime
⇒ The Eure
⇒ The Calvados
⇒ The Manche
Photo credits: Nicolas Diolez Photos not copyright-free, photographer's authorization required before any use
