Rouen : maisons à pans de bois

Rouen was first a Gaulish city, then a Roman (or Gallo-Roman) city, then a Norman city, and at one point an English city (or possession), before becoming a French city. Today, it's one of the two administrative capitals of the Normandy region (Caen is the other). It's also an important port city, with ship traffic coming up the Seine river from Le Havre and the English Channel to load or unload on the northern edge of Rouen. Bombings during World War II caused great destruction in the city, especially along the river and in the port district. The cathedral was heavily damaged but then restored after the war.

Translating from the French Wikipedia article about the housing stock of Rouen:

"The city is remarkable for the diversity and richness of its urban fabric There are houses of many eras, from the 13th century to the contemporary period. Rouen is one of the most diverse cities in France from an architectural perspective. There are buildings of many styles and built of many materials, including half-timbered structures and stone, brick, and concrete houses and apartment buildings of all kinds of shapes and colors...."

"Despite extensive damage inflicted by wartime bombardments in the 1940s, the city still has more than two thousand half-timbered houses (maisons à pans de bois) out of the four thousand that existed in 1939. The streets around the Vieux Marché, the Gros Horloge and the cathedral, as well as in the Eau de Robec, Damiette, Saint-Vivien, and Beauvoisine neighborhoods, are well worth a visit."

Wandering the streets of the old part of Rouen...
Some of the houses look like they might be ready to topple over into the narrow streets.

The old city is on the right bank of the Seine. Rouen has been known as la ville au cent clochers (the city of a hundred steeples) and la ville-musée (a museum of a city). A 1981-vintage Michelin Green Guide that I have says that its stock of half-timbered houses, "be they tall or squat, standing up straight or leaning precariously, elegant or modest, these houses are the soul of Rouen. Light-weight and easy to work with, oak — once plentiful in the region — became the ideal local building material, guaranteeing solidity."

The photos in this post are ones I took in May 1998 with a 1996-vintage digital camera. I had earlier spent the 1972-73 school year in Rouen. I turned 24 in 1973.

Rouen is also known as le pot de chambre de la Normandie — the chamber pot of Normandy — because it rains so much there. I remember the principal (proviseur) of the Lycée Corneille telling me about the local climate back in 1972. "They say it rains a lot in Rouen," he said, "but it's not true. It doesn't rain much — but it rains all the time." The rain is often just a fine mist that's still heavy enough to keep you and everything around you wet. As I've always said, you don't move to France for the weather. For the long history, the beautiful landscapes, the delicious food, yes... but not sunny weather.