A virtue has been made of the necessity of clearing
away the rubble of Caen's medieval houses, which formerly pressed up
against its ancient château ramparts . The resulting open green
space means that those walls are now fully visible for the first time
in centuries. In turn, walking the circuit of the ramparts gives a good
overview of the city, with a particularly fine prospect of the
reconstructed fourteenth-century facade of the nearby church of St-Pierre . Some magnificent Renaissance stonework has survived intact at the church's east end.
Within the castle walls, it's possible to visit the former Exchequer
- which dates from shortly after the Norman conquest of England, and
was the scene of a banquet thrown by Richard the Lionheart en route to
the Crusades - and inspect a garden that has been replanted with the
herbs and medicinal plants that were cultivated here during the Middle
Ages. Also inside the precinct, though not in original structures, are
two museums. Most visitors will probably prefer the Musée des Beaux-Arts
(daily except Tues 9.30am-6pm; €3.81, free on Wed), which traces a
potted history of European art from Renaissance Italy through such
Dutch masters as Brueghel the Younger up to grand portraits from
eighteenth-century France in the upstairs galleries. Downstairs brings
things up to date with some powerful twentieth-century art, though
there are few big-name works. The other museum, the Musée de Normandie
(daily except Tues 9.30am-12.30pm & 2-6pm; €1.52, free on Wed),
provides a cursory overview of Norman history, ranging from
archeological finds like stone tools from the region's megalithic
period and glass jewellery from Gallo-Roman Rouen up to the impact of
the Industrial Revolution.
The Abbaye aux Hommes
, at the west end of rue St-Pierre, was founded by William the
Conqueror and designed to hold his tomb within the huge, austere
Romanesque church of St-Étienne (daily 8.15am-noon &
2-7.30pm, free; 1hr 15min guided tours leave adjacent Hôtel de Ville
daily 9.30am, 11am, 2.30pm & 4pm, €1.52). However, his burial here,
in 1087, was hopelessly undignified. The funeral procession first
caught fire and was then held to ransom, as various factions squabbled
over his rotting corpse for any spoils they could grab. A further
interruption came when a man halted the service to object that the
grave had been constructed without compensation on the site of his
family house, and the assembled nobles had to pay him off before
William could be laid to rest. During the Revolution the tomb was again
ransacked, and it now holds a solitary thigh-bone rescued from the
river. Still, the building itself is a wonderful Romanesque monument.
Adjoining the church are the abbey buildings, designed during the
eighteenth century and now housing the Hôtel de Ville.
At the other end of the town centre, at the end of rue des Chanoines, is the Abbaye aux Dames
, commissioned by William's wife Matilda in the hope of saving her soul
after committing the godless sin of marrying her cousin. Her monument -
the church of La Trinité - is even more starkly impressive than
her husband's, with a gloomy pillared crypt, wonderful stained glass
behind the altar and odd sculptural details like the fish curled up in
the holy-water stoup. The convent buildings today house the regional
council but are open to the public for free guided tours (daily 2.30pm & 4pm).
Most of the centre of Caen
is taken up with busy new shopping developments and pedestrian
precincts, where the cafés are distinguished by names such as Fast Food
Glamour Vault. Outlets of the big Parisian stores - and of the
aristocrats' grocers, Hédiard, in the cours des Halles - are here,
along with good local rivals. The main city market takes place on Friday, spreading along both sides of Fosse St-Julien, and there's also a Sunday market in place Courtonne. The pleasure port , at the end of the canal which links Caen to the sea, is where most life goes on, at least in summer.
Just north of Caen, at the end of avenue Marshal-Montgomery in the Folie Couvrechef area, the Caen Memorial
- "a museum for peace" - stands on a plateau named after General
Eisenhower (daily: mid-Jan to mid-Feb & Nov-Dec daily 9am-6pm, last
entry 4.45pm; mid-Feb to June, Sept & Oct 9am-7pm, last entry
5.45pm; July & Aug 9am-8pm, last entry 6.45pm; tel 02.31.06.06.44, www.unicaen.fr/memorial ; €11.28), on a clifftop beneath which the Germans had their HQ in June and July 1944. Funds and material for it came from the US, Britain, Canada, Germany, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia, the USSR and France.
The museum is a typically French high-tech, novel-architecture
conception, with excellent displays pided into three sections; it's
worth allowing at least two hours for a visit. The first section deals
with the rise of fascism in Germany, another with resistance and collaboration in France.
A third charts all the major battles of World War II, and visits
culminate with three separate film documentaries. In addition, the
former German bunkers below have been refurbished as the Nobel Peace
Prize Winners' Gallery. Portraits and short essays commemorate each
recipient in turn, placing their achievements in context. There's also
a good-value self-service restaurant upstairs.
The memorial is on bus routes #17 (Mon-Sat) and #S (Sun) from the "Tour le Roi" stop in the centre of town.
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