And now onto the serious stuff.
Rouen Cathedral is currently first in the running for the crown of "Miss Gothic Cathedral" which I will award on my flight home. It incorporates everything I personally love about these amazing and historically significant churches: incredible height of the nave, massive columns that seem to rise from the very earth, sparkling light from intricate stained glass, the palpable weight of centuries, and a sense of sacred space filled with God's presence. I'm certainly no Gothic architectural expert, but, even though they were built somewhat contemporaneously (Rouen taking longer to complete,) Rouen seems to finish what Chartres started. There is more grandeur here, even as there is more simplicity and openness, notable especially by the choir that is surrounded by fourteen soaring pillars, which configuration recalls the perfection of Roman and Greek structures and opens up the entire church.
According to Wiki, Rouen is the historic capital city of Normandy, in northern France on the River Seine, and currently the capital of the Haute-Normandie (Upper Normandy) region. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, Rouen was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages. It was one of the capitals of the Anglo-Norman dynasties, which ruled both England and large parts of modern France from the eleventh century to the 15th century. It was in Rouen where Joan of Arc was burnt in 1431. People from Rouen are called Rouennais.
Rouen Cathedral has been damaged throughout the centuries with fire, wars, hurricanes, religious fanatics, French revolutionaries, and aerial bombardment in 1944, but it has survived. There is currently some cleaning and restoration going on and some of the life-sized stone saint figures have been removed and placed along one ambulatory. I've included a picture of them -- it's quite remarkable to stand next to one that has graced the cathedral for hundreds of years.
Rollo, a Viking conqueror of disputed heritage, and Richard The Lionheart's heart are entombed here. The rest of Richard was buried at Fontevraud Abbey in the Loire Valley until royal remains were scattered during the Revolution -- his tomb remains there, however, with his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine and father Henry II.
Claude Monet created at least 30 paintings of the facades of Rouen Cathedral over a two-year period, capturing the many values of color and light that play across the exterior.
There are many other churches and timbered houses to see in Rouen, and the town has a friendly, though touristy, ambience. I visited on a Saturday and the medieval streets around the cathedral were packed with sightseers, including me.
The Cathedral St-Etienne in Bourges, along with Amiens, drew me to France for this trip of discovery the first time I saw photos of it. I've used so many superlatives in writing about these cathedrals that I'm sure mere words lose their impact. Click the link at the beginning of this paragraph to get an idea of the majesty of this church. In his book, Great Gothic Cathedrals of France, Stan Parry writes: "This rising fugue of complexity and simplicity, of wholeness and detail, of space and light, of strength and lightness, of power and refinement is the Cathedral of St-Etienne of Bourges. It is one of the true architectural glories of Western civilization." And Balzac was quoted as saying, "All of Paris is not worth the Cathedral at Bourges."
The initial impact upon the first sight of this church, and upon entering it, is one of great mass. It was not built according to the Latin cross formation, as was nearly every other church of its time, and after, but has an open nave from front to back; in fact, there are five naves, according to the information pamphlet: two left side naves/aisles, the main nave, and two right side naves/aisles. The double-span buttresses providing support for this immense struture are not the graceful "flying buttresses" of later construction, but instead solid, vertical columns that appear to anchor the church to earth.
What struck me even more than the bulk and complete integrity of the building was the quality of the stained glass. It is said to be comparable to Chartres, but the windows are placed much lower and so are more visible. I don't know if it was due to the time of day of my visit or the intricate patterns of the glass, but it is by far the most beautiful that I've seen, and I wish my camera had done a better job of capturing the neon effect of the glowing figures.
Bourges is located in the center of France, about two hours south of Paris, in a beautiful locale. It is a university town, and the area around the cathedral has a warren of 16th and 17th century streets and buildings, very lively and busy. Visiting Bourges cathedral was worth the entire trip -- it was even worth sitting in the train station for four hours waiting for a train back to Paris that had NOT been canceled by a strike.
