Rouen Audio guided walking tour 1h45 and 27 audio comments

When you came to Rouen, you might not have imagined that you would have so many churches in one visit. Now, believe us, each of them has something to teach us about the city.

Dear culture lovers, in Rouen you will be treated with care. And if you’re told that, it’s because a wide choice of museums awaits you and a handful of them even have the merit of welcoming you for free. This is the case of the Museum of Fine Arts, which you have just stopped in front of.

A glittering Big Clock, a stone lace cathedral, some 2,000 half-timbered houses in various colours and styles, Rouen is such a heterogeneous and demonstrative heritage complex that we are constantly amazed.

If we are used to saying that “all roads lead to Rome”, well, in the same style, know that all oceans lead to Rouen.

Next to the abbey of Saint-Ouen, which stretches high, you will find a building that prefers to spread along the length. What are we dealing with? Well at the current Rouen City Inn.

Regularly mistaken for a cathedral, with its extraordinary measures of more than 130 meters long and 33 meters high, the abbey of Saint-Ouen was founded around the year 750, in place of a large Romanesque church destroyed by fire.

If in Rouen, there is the famous Gros Clock that almost everyone knows, know that a more mini and more “pass-through” version can be approached.

Very pleasant to explore on foot, Rouen counts no less than 1200 streets where you can very quickly lose your way. But if the majority of them present themselves as the Rue Eau de Robec, in which we brought you, not being able to be located any more seems to be a distant problem.

Walking the Saint-Maclou district, this is the kind of must-see that is essential in our itinerary of visit to the Norman capital. Any good self-respecting Rouennais will even encourage you to do so.

Strange, secretive, unusual, intimidating, with so many mysterious and supreme words to define it, it is not surprising that the elder Saint-Maclou is the second most visited monument in Rouen, behind Notre-Dame Cathedral.

So, of all the half-timbered houses that Rouen lists, we’re ready to bet that you haven’t seen any like it. I'd like you to meet the famous house that leans.

In a decor essentially shaped by half-timbered houses, the Saint-Maclou church makes reign more beautiful its singularity, or better, its inimitable grace

In Rouen, the Rue des Chanoines is one of those discreet and charming passages that make the discovery of the places even more picturesque.

To honor Joan of Arc’s epic, Rouen could have played the traditional museum card with classic works and some collectibles. But admit that with a character as exciting as the Thumb, it would have been a shame to settle for so little.

In Rue Saint-Romain, as everywhere else in the historic heart of Rouen, the only Trip Tip we have to give you is to keep looking up to admire what is around you.

How difficult it is to detach the gaze of Rouen’s flamboyant cathedral from this square that is rightly dedicated to it.

Notre-Dame de Chartres, Paris, Reims, Amiens, Strasbourg are names of cathedrals well known in France. But have you ever heard of Notre-Dame de Rouen?

Flat calm? Don’t look, this is not where you will find it. For the simple reason that you are currently in the busiest artery of Rouen.

Even as you start crossing the street, you can guess from a distance what will be the next focus of the visit. Both unmissable and symbolic, the Gros Horloge is more than linked to Rouen’s medieval past.

“Friends! So it’s Rouen, the city with old streets, old towers, debris of disappeared races, the city with a hundred bell towers chiming in the air.” These are the words of Victor Hugo in his collection of poems The Autumn Leaves, published in 1831.

Situated on the charming Place de la Pucelle, the Inn Bourgtheroulde is one of the many architectural nuggets in the historic centre of Rouen.

Built on the site of Joan of Arc’s martyrdom since 1979, this church is unlike any other in the city.

Like you, a multitude of passers-by flock from all sides and mark the stop at this place. Above all, don't be surprised. This is the effect it gives when you land in the central and historic core of Rouen.

“To be defeated without danger, we triumph without glory”, who among you at the ref? Our fans of classical French theatre, perhaps. The ones who kept some leftovers from their high school classes, no doubt. In any case, Le Cid is certainly the best known work of Pierre Corneille.

If there is one date that Rouen is not about to forget, it is surely May 30, 1431. And if there is one place, from which Rouen will never want to be separated, it is certainly this.

You find me on the projecting part of the gutters, usually carved from stone, under the appearance of an animal or human figure. Have you guessed who I am? If so, well done, I am indeed a gargoyle.

This beautiful architectural achievement of flamboyant Gothic style, characterized by this ornamentation in “lace”, is the great courthouse of Rouen.