Today is Rouen, the capital of Normandy, site of the burning of Joan of Arc, and a city of so many churches it makes Adelaide look positively heathen.

Seriously though it does have a lot of churches as it was the centre of the church for many years in France, however today many of them have been sold off for private housing, or government buildings and one is now the Rouen concert hall.

A lot of Rouen managed to survive WWII, unusual for a large town in this part of France, but most of the strategic locations were down by the river and this part of town was flattened. It makes for a strange walk as you go through all the modern (and not very nice) 50's and 60's architecture to then come into the old streets with the timbered houses typical of the 14 & 15 century where they build them further out into the street as they get higher. This was outlawed at the end of the 15th century. The house on the right in this picture was interesting as the top floor looks different to the others, this was a typical fabric producing house of the time, and the top floor was left open at the front and rear to allow the through draft to dry the fabric following dying.

We did the guided walk then decided to have a walk around on our own and stumbled across the city's memorial to Napoleon, one of the only statues in the city to have survived in WWII due to Hitler's reverence of Napoleon. We soon found a nice cafe for a sandwich and coffee, only to find our tour guide sitting at the next table, shows we must have been lucky or something with our choice of eatery.

Finding our way back to the ship we discovered the caps were waiting for us on the gangplank, almost saying "why didn't you take us with you?".

Shortly after getting back on board the ship sailed back up river towards Paris, and we had a very nice afternoon sitting in the sun watching the scenery going past.