Rouen is a city of about 115,000 on the Seine in Normandy, 80km inland from the sea and still a working port. It was the capital of the Duchy of Normandy, JOAN OF ARC WAS TRIED AND BURNED HERE IN 1431, and MONET PAINTED THE CATHEDRAL FACADE MORE THAN THIRTY TIMES in different light.
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What Is Here
THE CATHEDRAL IS THE BUILDING MONET MADE FAMOUS AND IT REWARDS THE SAME PATIENCE. Notre-Dame de Rouen is high Gothic with a flamboyant west front, the tallest church spire in France at 151 metres, and the tomb of Richard the Lionheart's heart. The facade changes completely with the light, which is precisely what Monet was recording.
THE OLD TOWN IS THE DENSEST SURVIVING SET OF HALF-TIMBERED HOUSES IN FRANCE, around two thousand of them, leaning over narrow streets. The image at the top of this post is one; the Rue du Gros-Horloge and the Rue Saint-Romain are the streets to walk.
The cathedral interior is the second image, and it is worth the time: the nave is unusually tall and the ambulatory holds the Lionheart tomb.
THE GROS-HORLOGE IS A FOURTEENTH CENTURY ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK set in an arch across the street, with one of the oldest surviving movements in Europe, and you can climb to the belfry.
JOAN OF ARC IS EVERYWHERE AND THE MODERN CHURCH IS THE SURPRISE. The Eglise Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc, built in 1979 on the Place du Vieux-Marche where she was burned, has a roof like an upturned boat or a flame and holds sixteenth century stained glass salvaged from a church destroyed in 1944. The Historial Jeanne d'Arc in the archbishop's palace stages the trial and the rehabilitation.
The Musee des Beaux-Arts is one of the best in France outside Paris, with Caravaggio, Velazquez and a serious Impressionist collection including one of the cathedral canvases.
The Abbatiale Saint-Ouen is larger than many cathedrals and is routinely missed.
When to Go
May, June and September. The light in late spring and early autumn is the reason Monet worked here.
July and August are warm and busy without being oppressive.
Winter is grey, wet and short-dayed, and the museums and the cathedral are the better for it.
Rain is possible in every month. Rouen is a maritime Norman city and the weather arrives off the Channel.
THE ARMADA DE ROUEN FILLS THE CITY roughly every four to six years, when tall ships moor along the Seine in June and several million people come. Check whether your dates coincide.
Getting There
By train, about an hour and a quarter from Paris Saint-Lazare, frequent and direct, with the station a ten minute walk from the centre.
By car, roughly an hour and a half from Paris.
By ferry, Newhaven to Dieppe is about an hour away, and Portsmouth to Le Havre also about an hour.
By air, Paris is the practical airport.
The centre is compact and walkable and there is a metro and tram for the rest.
Is Rouen Safe for Women?
Rouen is an ordinary French regional city and a university town, and is safe. The FCDO publishes no advised-against areas anywhere in France, and its terrorism wording is the strongest it uses: terrorists are very likely to try to carry out attacks in France, with shopping centres, entertainment venues, sporting events, transport hubs and crowded gatherings named as possible targets. The everyday risks are more specific than that sounds. Pickpocketing is organised on the Paris Metro and on trains, typically in pairs with one person distracting you, and the FCDO records SERIOUS ASSAULTS on RER lines B and D, which matters because line B is the train most visitors take from the airports. Drink spiking is named with the drugs rather than hinted at: be alert to the possible use of date rape drugs including GHB and liquid ecstasy. Strikes and demonstrations happen at short notice and can stop trains and close roads, usually peacefully. And wildfires affect the south in hot dry summers.
If you are driving to a Channel port, the FCDO has a specific instruction. It records attempts by people to enter private vehicles in order to reach the UK illegally, that camper vans are targeted while stationary or in slow traffic, and that obstacles are sometimes placed on roads to ports including the Calais port road. Keep your doors locked, keep moving where it is safe to do so, do not leave the vehicle unattended, and if it is not safe to proceed, stop and call 112.
The usual city precautions are the whole of it: a closed bag in the market and on the metro, and the area around the station and the Rue Jeanne d'Arc is unremarkable rather than unsafe but is not where you would linger at three in the morning.
The cobbles and the medieval streets are slippery wet, which is the likeliest cause of a fall and is most of the year in Normandy.
Rouen is a student city with a lively Thursday to Saturday around the Place du Vieux-Marche and the Rue Beauvoisine, with the ordinary consequences and nothing worse.
The Seine quays are unfenced in places and the river is tidal this far up, which is worth knowing at night.
The Rouen Packing List
Wet maritime weather and a lot of movement between cold stone and street.
Our merino base layers are 100% Australian merino at 17.5 micron, and a long sleeve merino wool base layer for women is the right first layer for a cathedral city in a damp climate: you move between a vast cold stone interior and a wet street repeatedly through a day, and wool regulates that without adding and removing things. From October to April add a heavyweight merino base layer, because Norman Gothic interiors in February are genuinely cold.
A Columbia Fast Trek II fleece and a Marmot PreCip Eco rain jacket, which here is a year-round item.
Waterproof walking shoes with Darn Tough merino socks: medieval cobbles, worn stone and the belfry stair, all of it slick when wet.
A set of packing cubes if Rouen is one stop on a Normandy tour, which it usually is.
Not linked and worth packing: AN UMBRELLA, which in a compact city with arcaded streets beats a hood; A LIGHT SCARF for the cathedral and Saint-Ouen; SOMETHING TO COVER YOUR SHOULDERS for the churches; and A REFILLABLE BOTTLE. France is card-friendly throughout, including the markets.
Recommended Tours and Experiences
Essential Resources for Women in Rouen
Emergency numbers: 112 for police, ambulance and fire, free from any phone including a locked mobile, with operators who will find an English speaker. It is the single number across the whole European Union.
Rouen is 80 kilometres inland on the Seine and is not a seaside city, which catches out visitors who have seen it described as a Normandy port: it is a river port, the water here is tidal, and the beaches are an hour away at Dieppe or Le Havre. THE MEDIEVAL COBBLES ARE SLIPPERY WET, which is most of the year in Normandy and is the likeliest cause of a fall. THE SEINE QUAYS ARE UNFENCED IN PLACES. If you drive towards a Channel port, the FCDO's vehicle-entry instruction above applies, and Dieppe and Le Havre are each about an hour away. THE ARMADA DE ROUEN fills the city with several million visitors when it runs, roughly every four to six years in June: check your dates. The cathedral spire is the tallest in France at 151 metres.
US State Department travel advisory: the France advisory. Read the current level there directly rather than relying on a figure printed in any guide.
UK FCDO travel advice: gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france, and read the safety and security page rather than only the landing page, because that is where the substance sits.
Main hospital: the CHU de Rouen is a university teaching hospital with a full emergency department and is the regional referral centre for Normandy. Dial 112 for an ambulance or 15 for the SAMU. A pharmacie, marked with a green cross, posts the duty rota. France is in the EU, so a UK Global Health Insurance Card or an EU European Health Insurance Card gives you state-provided medically necessary care on the same terms as a resident, which means you pay the same patient share a French resident pays rather than nothing. That is not the same as free and it does not cover repatriation, so travel insurance sits on top of it. French hospitals are excellent and a pharmacie, marked by a green cross, handles minor problems without an appointment and will tell you where the duty pharmacy is out of hours. Tap water is drinkable everywhere. Dial 15 for a medical emergency or 112 for anything.
Official health authority: Sante publique France, the national public health agency. covers the Normandy regional health agency
US Embassy: the United States Embassy in Paris.
Official tourism authority: Atout France, the national tourism body. publishes the cathedral and Gros-Horloge opening hours, the Historial Jeanne d'Arc times and the Armada dates when it runs
Takeaways
Look at the cathedral facade twice, at different times. That is what Monet was doing.
Walk the Rue Saint-Romain and the Gros-Horloge street. Two thousand timbered houses.
The 1979 Joan of Arc church is better than it sounds. Salvaged Renaissance glass.
It is a river city, not a coastal one. The sea is an hour away.
Solo women safety assessment: Rouen is an easy, ordinary French city for a woman travelling alone. It is a regional capital with a large university, a compact and almost entirely pedestrian historic centre, a metro and tram network, and streets that stay busy with students and families well into the evening. The precautions are the ones you would take in any European city of this size: a closed bag on the metro and in the Place du Vieux-Marche crowds, and the station district and the Rue Jeanne d'Arc treated as somewhere to pass through late at night rather than to linger. 112 REACHES POLICE, AMBULANCE AND FIRE free from any phone including a locked one, 15 reaches the SAMU, and the CHU de Rouen is a university teaching hospital and the regional referral centre, so medical cover is as good as it gets in this batch. FRANCE'S ADVISORY CONCERNS ARE NATIONAL, pickpocketing on the Paris transport network, industrial action and demonstrations that disrupt travel, and the terrorism threat level, with one clause that becomes practical if you hire a car: the FCDO records attempts by people to enter private vehicles bound for the UK, names the roads to the Channel ports, and tells drivers to keep doors locked, keep moving where safe, and call 112 if it is not. Dieppe and Le Havre are each about an hour from here. THE PHYSICAL RISK IS ENTIRELY MUNDANE AND IS THE THING THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS: the old town is medieval cobble and worn stone, it is wet for much of the Norman year, and a fall in smooth-soled shoes is the commonest injury visitors suffer in cities like this. The Seine quays are also unfenced in stretches and the river is tidal this far inland, which is worth remembering walking back along them at night. ONE EXPECTATION TO CORRECT RATHER THAN A DANGER: people arrive expecting a seaside Normandy and find a river port eighty kilometres from the coast.
Reading On
Rouen is the Seine valley and Normandy's coast is an hour away. The Normandy packing list covers the region as a whole, the Etretat packing list the chalk cliffs and the Le Havre packing list the port at the river mouth, with the Honfleur packing list and Deauville packing list across the estuary and the Caen packing list, Bayeux packing list, Granville packing list and Cherbourg packing list further west. East, the Amiens packing list and Dunkirk packing list cover the north, with the Versailles packing list near Paris. South, the Amboise packing list and Loire Valley packing list cover the chateaux. For the country the France travel guide for women and the France packing list carry the transport and the regions in full. For why wool suits cold stone and wet streets, read the guide to merino wool base layers for women. Every destination we cover is indexed at the travel packing guide for women, and the base layers are at the Roman Trail collection.
If the outer journey is calling you, the inner one usually is too. Explore SoulMap at romantrail.com/blogs/soulmap.
