Rouen

Half-timbered houses lean at angles that narrow the sky to a ribbon overhead, their blackened oak frames older than the cobblestones beneath. Rouen in France carries fire in its history — Joan of Arc burned here, the cathedral survived Allied bombs, and the old quarter has rebuilt itself around the scars. The air in the medieval streets is heavy with timber and river damp.

Rouen served as the capital of the Duchy of Normandy from the 10th century and remains the largest city on the Seine between Paris and the sea. The Cathédrale Notre-Dame, whose façade Monet painted in over thirty variations between 1892 and 1894, combines Romanesque, Gothic, and Flamboyant elements accumulated over eight centuries. Joan of Arc was tried and executed in the Place du Vieux-Marché in 1431; the modern Église Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc on the site incorporates 16th-century stained glass rescued from a war-damaged church. The Gros-Horloge, a 14th-century astronomical clock spanning the main street on a Renaissance arch, has marked time for the city since its mechanism was installed in 1389. Gustave Flaubert was born here in 1821, and the city's literary connections extend through Maupassant and Corneille.