Rouen (France) -- Description and travel; Rouen (France) -- History
It was in my mind at first to place here an itinerary I had planned by
which it would be possible to visit everything of interest in Rouen in
six days, starting from the Hotel du Nord near the Grosse Horloge, and
returning to the same spot. But it is perhaps better after all that
you should visit the places mentioned in my chapters as the spirit
moves you, and that I should merely set down in these last pages a few
old streets or houses which you must not miss, merely because I have
had no space to speak of them before.
Returning from the _Chartreuse de la Rose_, it will be good to take
the Route de Lyons la Foret past the chateau called _Nid de chiens_ (a
name which preserves the memory of the old Dukes' Kennels) where Henri
IV. was entertained. You will see the seventeenth-century house on
your left, between two railway bridges which cross the road, just
before the Caserne Trupel. Continue by the same road, keeping the
_Aubette_ on your right, and turn round the wall of the great Hospital
enclosure till you reach the _Rue Edouard Adam_, and pass the Rue Eau
de Robec which is beautiful on each side of you. Pass the new
_Fontaine Croix de Pierre_, and as you turn down the _Rue Orbe_ look
quickly at the backs of the houses on the Robec, and then swing to the
right up the _Rue des Champs_. At the _Rue Matelas_ you must stop.
_St. Vivien's_ Church closes the quaint vista of the street, and at
No. 19 is an aged doorway to a dark courtyard, and beyond that, a
charming turret staircase on the roadway with a gallery outside all
wreathed in roses. The gables and the woodwork and the shadowed
windows make up an exquisite little picture of mediaeval domesticity.
When you return again to the Rue Orbe, look down the Rue _Pomme d'Or_
to your left, and then turn up the Rue Poisson and admire the
beautiful choir of _St. Nicaise_, remembering the story of the famous
"boise" I told you in the last chapter. Up the Rue St. Nicaise, past
the Rue Floquet, the hideous slit of the _Rue d'Enfer_ opens on the
left, so you turn away to the Rue Roche opposite, and keep swinging to
the left up the _Rue de la Cage_ and so on to the _Boulevard
Beauvoisine_. The _Place du Boulingrin_, where I have no doubt the
English garrison of 1420 played at bowls, is still green and inviting
a little to your right. But pushing on still westwards to the left you
come to the _Boulevard Jeanne d'Arc_, and pass the road that leads
northwards to a fascinating Cider-tavern in the _Champs des Oiseaux_.
A little further on is the Rue Verte (leading northwards to the
Railway Station and southwards to the Rue Jeanne d'Arc and the river)
and at last you reach the _Place Cauchoise_ and the _Rue St. Gervais_
which mounts to the north-west. Look at No. 31 (the Menuiserie Briere)
as you pass, for the sake of the charming old wooden gallery in its
courtyard, and then at No. 71 with its pretty eighteenth-century
panels like plaques of Wedgewood, an ornament which is closely
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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