Walking around Caen

Amici, I fear I have been increasingly neglectful of this blog. Other things have been occupying my mind and my time. I haven’t progressed through half my trip yet, though! How silly.

One of my favourite things to do in Europe was to walk through the streets alone with only a sketch of an idea where I was going. In Caen, after viewing Matilda’s church and the great fortress, I was pretty keen on finding William’s abbey. The weather was not especially congenial, as I’ve mentioned before, but it felt like an authentic Norman experience and I am no stranger to rain having grown up in a coastal city.

There are several things that caught my attention as I made my way to the abbey, and I will display a few below, but what truly delighted me was a building dating from the early Renaissance with a period wood façade. Among the stone buildings, it stuck out like a sore thumb. I will copy out what the plaque said in English:

Built at the beginning of the 16th century, these two houses are particularly noteworthy for their decoration which juxtaposes flamboyant Gothic and Renaissance style. As stone is abundant in Caen, house fronts were rarely timber-framed. The left-hand house belonged to a rich Caen merchant, Michel Mabré, an alderman of the town in 1509.

The detailing is marvellous:

 

About the windows:

I’m amazed it’s lasted so long:

Continuing my walk, I passed by Notre-Dame-de-Froiderue, a church whose foundation dates to before AD 1000, which was rebuilt in the 12th and 14th centuries and has seen many changes since then. The exterior has suffered quite a bit, whether by inclement weather or by human agency (quite possibly the former), and the stained glass windows have been lost.

Some medieval faces still remain, however:

Alright, I’m exhausted (seriously, these photos take forever to upload and I am a terribly impatient person). That’s it for today, except one curious thing I found on the Rue Froide side of the church (which road, by the way, appears on charters dating to the twelfth century!):

Caen: Wherein I betook myself on a self-guided walking tour and made up a lot of history

Let us begin this blog post with the disclaimer: I cannot guarantee a mite of the history I will recount is true. Indeed, I would highly caution against it. Forsooth, I would scratch the “hi” and rather call it a nice “story.” Let me glibly dismiss all challenges with a gentle cough that sounds almost like “not my era,” though of course I would never admit to being so lazy. Let’s engage in some bad writing, too, just to emphasize further the inaccuracies.

Since the dawn of time, William “the Conqueror” of Normandy had been destined to conquer. After all, it was his middle name. Son of Robert “the Duke” of Normandy and his irresistibly named mistress, Herleva, when he perceived that Edward the Confessor of Angloland was looking sickly, he rubbed his hands together with glee and envisioned taking over the isle to the north, wreaking havoc on its vowels and establishing Anglo-Normandy. In order to actualize his Cunning Little Plan of Wor(l)d Domination, he began to build forts — and not your typical cardboard and blankets forts — particularly on the brink of Northern France. One such force of battlement was erected at Caen. Little did he know that in actual fact if you want to get to England from those shores you actually have to catch a six-hour ferry from Ouistreham, calling for a taxi by Skype with mauvais français because the gulag of a hostel you got yourself into with doors that lock themselves after you exit closes its reception desk before 10 pm and doesn’t re-open until after you’re supposed to be at the docks, but that’s another story. The fact of the matter remains: he saw Caen as advantageous. Or perhaps Mathilda liked the view.

Nine hundred and fifty years later, to the day no doubt, a wandering scholar found herself facing a great surprise on the horizon of her travels:

*N.B. Will’s tacit endorsement of the E.U. But in actual factual, only the moat remains unchanged in any drastic fashion (apart from deepening). This may or may not be true.

A sweet view of the keep:

A fork in the road, allowing archers more options:

And some more photos thrown together since I can’t figure out how to be discerning with the gallery feature:

(Not quite sure how to use that gallery feature yet.)

In the fort was a church! On that church was a sign from my country and honouring people from the province I am currently residing in:

I pretended to be a soldier when facing these sights.

Clearly the canon does not date to William.

It was a little amazing to see how worn the steps are.

These pictures take a while to upload, and I am weary of weaving my tales. However, I did manage to bake pita bread and carrot muffins in the time it took to load them. Productivity score!

Fare thee well, fortress!

Normandy

After that first stint in Paris, I took a train to Évreux. A very small town, the librarians were very friendly, but apart from that there is not much for me to comment on.

Here is a picture of the main church, a mixture of styles:

Here is an historical mural on what I believe is a school:

I also took pictures of the St Taurin reliquary, but I’ve found better ones PLUS a description here.

I then continued to Caen. My romantic heart has been filled with stories of crossing the English Channel since I was a wee thing, so I was set on travelling to England from France by means of a sea-worthy vessel, even if I wasn’t going to be quite true to my novels with a departure from the almost mythical Calais. Caen was not only relatively in the ‘hood, but also boasted some medieval sites of interest. So I threw my lot in with Caen.

And what a profitable gamble! Hello, romanesque-blending-with-avant-garde-gothic architecture! William the Conqueror and Queen Mathilda stole my heart.

Mathilda’s Abbey for Women:

The holy water font was embellished with a couple of permanent inhabitants:

And on the outer façade, we find an intriguing trinitarian depiction of Christ:

Tune in next time for a tour of William’s fortress….