Our final stop on our pilgrimage of great French Cathedrals took us north of our home-base at Champ du Boult, up along the upper Seine Valley, to the city of Rouen—by far
the largest Norman city, and one of France’s most important ports.
In the words of our literary companion, Edith Wharton:
“Here indeed the traveller finds himself in no mere “cathedra town”… the cathedral itself has put forth the appeal of all its accumulated treasures to make one take, first of all, the turn to its doors. There are few completer impressions in Europe than that to be received as one enters the Lady Chapel of Rouen, where an almost Italian profusion of colour and ornament have been suffered to accumulate slowly about its central ornament—the typically northern monument of the two Cardinals of Amboise.”
~Edith Wharton (“A Motor-Flight Through France”)
It’s only fitting that we would end with St. Joan of Arc, who has been with us at every stop on our pilgrimage of the French countryside. Rouen is the city where Joan of Arc died, and we ended our two-week pilgrimage at her cathedral:
More on Joan of Arc later -- tomorrow we say Ov revoir to France, and head back home to Oklahoma! Thank you for your prayers -- and count on ours from whenever we are on our Camino.
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