1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:50 PageC1 SEINE VALLEY - NORMANDY The Tourist and Conference Information Centre Magazine Up and coming Normandy - a land of rich and plenty Lifestyle The Tour de France comes to Rouen Savour the flavour Local produce Out and about Messing about in boats edition 2012 - 2013 €2 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:50 PageC2 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:51 Page1 SEINE VALLEY - NORMANDY The Tourist and Conference Information Centre Magazine SEINE VALLEY - NORMANDY The Tourist and Conference Information Centre Magazine Up and coming Normandy - a land of rich and plenty Lifestyle The Tour de France comes to Rouen Savour the flavour Local produce Out and about Messing about in boats Contents edition 2012 - 2013 €2 Up and coming 5 600th anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc 15 The label ‘Region of Art and History’ 20 Saint-Maclou reborn 24 Normandy - a land of rich and plenty 31 Rouen 2013, a year to remember lifestyle Lifestyle 36 The Tour de France comes to Rouen 43 Take a spin in the Seine valley 46 River cruises 50 Convention and congress centre Savour the flavour 52 Local produce 56 Some of our favourite addresses 59 Rooms in the community 63 Rooms with a view 67 What’s on the menu today? Out and about 72 Modern art 76 Seine river ferries 80 Take another look 82 Rouen city pass 83 Rouen opera 50 years on 90 Events diary 91 Addresses 1 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:51 Page2 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:51 Page3 Forward The CREA (short for the Rouen Elbeuf Austreberthe Community) is an urban area with an exceptional historic cultural heritage and, if that were not enough, it is also surrounded by an extraordinarily beautiful and diverse natural environment. The CREA has made the preservation and protection of this environment a top priority and the river Seine is clearly at the very heart of this. A fundamental part of this policy was to be awarded the Ministry of Culture’s quality label ‘Ville d’art et d’histoire’ which we achieved in 2011 and which is now the basis for further action to enhance our environment and surroundings. 2012 sees the launch of a specific programme of guided visits to promote the region’s many and diverse monuments and sites of interest which we hope will encourage people to get out and enjoy them. The Tour de France comes to Rouen on the 4/5th July as part of the 99th round France cycle race. This is an unprecedented opportunity to bring our city’s amazing buildings and the beauty and variety of all the communes that go to make up the CREA into the homes and to the attention of the millions of spectators around the world who follow the event on the television. To mark the Tour’s passage the CREA will be putting on exhibitions and events in memory of our local hero, cycling champion Jacques Anquetil. 2012 is also the anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc. The CREA has recently unveiled its plans for the inauguration of a new Joan of Arc Visitors’ Centre in memory of our national heroine who met her tragic end here in Rouen. This new museum, which opens in 2014, will bring the dramatic and troubled times that the Maid lived through to life and tell the fascinating story of her life and legend, giving visitors from the four corners of the globe the chance to discover and to understand the real Joan. Joan is the symbol of the whole French nation, a truly French heroine not tied to a particular faction or section of society, and we hope that in creating this new centre we will bring her life and sacrifice to the attention of the world. The centre will be housed in the historic Archbishop’s palace - a unique building of unparalleled beauty which up to now has not been open to the public. 2013 is year that is full of promise as we look forward to the second edition of the Normandy Impressionist Festival as well as the 6th Rouen Armada. Our city and region will be centre of the International stage as we host these two major events. The Seine will come into its own as it welcomes the world’s loveliest sailing ships and we celebrate its beauty captured on canvass forever by the impressionist masters who were fascinated and inspired by Rouen, the river and the light here in Normandy. This magazine will give you a taste of what is in store and I hope that you will all enjoy reading it as much as I did. With my best wishes, The President of the CREA 3 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:51 Page4 S 4 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:51 Page5 Up and coming This day, the girl known as Joan was questioned and asked her name and surname. She told us that in the place of her birth she was known as Joanie but that in France she was called Joan. She did not know her surname and, when asked where she was born, she replied that she had been born in a village called Domrémy de Grus, ‘the church being in the place called Grus’. 1412-2012: The 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc’s birth Extract from the first public questioning of Joan of Arc, 21st February 1431, held in the the Royal Chapel in the Château,Rouen 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:51 Page6 Joan an enigma 6 1-REVER2012 UK_Mise en page 1 12/06/12 15:51 Page7 The 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc’s birth n May 31st 1431 Joan of Arc Born in Domrémy 600 years ago, Joan is probably was burned live in Rouen by the best-known figure of the 15th century. She was the English. Her ashes were im- written about in her own lifetime and today she O mediately thrown into the Seine in an attempt to wash away her remains the subject of many an article and books, very existence. However, many of the writings that range from the serious and to the far- events of Joan’s life, from her birth 600 fetched. And yet her place in history is limited to a years ago to her death in this city, were noted down and recorded by the chro- brief two-year period between the siege of Orleans niclers, poets and churchmen of her and her death at the stake at Rouen aged just 19. day. There are very few figures whose appearance on the stage of history is so brief who have been studied and scru- tinised in such depth. When the En- glish threw her ashes into the river they merely added to the 1940 when France threw herself into Petain’s open arms.’ legend of France’s young martyr. The myth of Joan was in The Dauphin’s inner circle quickly saw the political advan- full flow and no one could stop it. tage that was to be obtained from promoting this young pro- Jean Maurice former dean of Rouen University’s history fa- phetess. ‘The ingredients were all in place and they had only culty, ‘says that it is impossible to distinguish between fact and to sit back and watch events take their course’, adds Jean fiction where Joan of Arc is concerned, even if we can identify Maurice. the historical facts as they were recorded at the time’. And this is just the start of the problem. The facts of her story and Political spin Joan’s heroic deeds are well known as they are documented Speaking in the political language of today, Joan was imme- by contemporary witnesses but it is ‘the interpretation or the diately identified by the Dauphin and his entourage as a spin’ that has been put on them, as the historian explains, trump card in the game of spin. This unknown girl from a which leads us to question their very basis. tiny village on the edges of the kingdom was of no interest militarily. She did not come with fresh troops and she had As predicted in the Bible no financial backers but her faith in her mission was unsha- ‘In the Middle Ages people thought that the events of the present keable and that alone would enable her to breathe life into had been predicted in the Bible,’ says Jean Maurice. ‘This the Armagnacs, the Dauphin’s political party. means that Joan of Arc quickly became a living Esther, Debo- When Joan arrived on the scene, the then tiny kingdom of rah or even Judith.’ These three women, who figure in the France was in complete disarray. Orleans was under siege Old Testament, are among the oldest examples of heroic wo- and, if the town were to fall, the English would carry before men found in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Esther saves her them all those parts of the south remaining loyal to the Dau- people from the destruction planned by the Persian minis- phin. ‘Towns were deserted, homes abandoned, fields left fallow, ter Haman. Deborah raises an army and triumphs over churches were without priests, terror stalked the land where peace Canaan. And Judith staves of the threat of invasion by de- and safety were things of the past.