ROUEN

I've been thinking about writing a blog about Rouen.  But since we still haven't made a trip into town to do some sightseeing, I don't have any pictures of the actual city.  That will come in a future blog.

For right now, we're just going to have a geography lesson.  So. . . ROUEN pronounced Roo-on but you need to roll the r (in the back of the throat) and then nasalize (plug your nose) for the last part.  There you have it:  ROU-EN.  That's not so hard is it?

The city of Rouen is northwest of Paris.  Reims is northeast of Paris.  And to make things even easier for you they are almost equa-distant from Paris.   Reims and Rouen are 240 kilometres apart or 150 miles.  We take a longer route to get from one city to the other because that way we don't have to drive through Paris.  It takes us four hours one way.

France

Reims is on the right (highlighted in pink) Rouen is on the left (highlighted)

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The city of Rouen is about the same size as Reims, even a little bit smaller.  But the city of Rouen also madeup of a lot of smaller cities which more than doubles the population.  Reims has 200,000, Rouen has 180,000 but 500,000 with the other cities. 

Rouen is very hilly.  To get to the apartment that we are living in we have to climb (with the car) a 4-5 km long hill at about 45° angle.  So far I haven't stalled the car on the hills.  :)
The Seine river runs through the city and actually makes a loop through it.  The city is built on both sides of the river with the old part of the city being north of the river.


Just to give you an idea of what some of the architecture is like in the old part of the city.  This was once a house but is now divided into apartments.  We were invited to lunch by a young couple on Sunday who live in one of the apartments. 

Their windows are the ones just above the wall.

 More next time.