Rouen- stuff to do?
Discussion
Just to report- Rouen is lovely.
Makes its cash from trade on the Seine, so hospitality and tourism play second fiddle, meaning the average quality of most things is quite good as they're catering for a local residential market as much as Les Rosbif's. So food and drink was, in the main, pretty good, and we only had one tourist tax experience. It also meant they would tend to respond in French if you tried, and in small shops/ supermarkets only French was spoken, which is nice if you like that sort of thing.
Every morning they jetwash the streets in the main tourist areas (as wasteful as that may or may not be, and of course if a dog dumps immediately after who cares). They do tend to trade quite heavily on having burnt Joan of Arc, but I suppose you would. The Cathedral light show is indeed very good, and they were prepping an on-shore beach between two of the bridges on the river, presumably for July/ August. Parks etc were being manicured with typically local pride.
Inevitably some things grate (the Observatory is open to the public at 21.30 on the first Saturday of the month and that's it), and there is a "very old clock" close to the Cathedral, but little info locally, wiki being your friend. Most of the tourism is limited to this small area, and we did struggle to find a lot for a toddler to do, but that was probably a lack of local knowledge rather than there being nothing. No Ubers were tipped over while we were there, and there was only one strike limited to a few tabbarded chaps outside some public building or other.
For adults on a short break (or on the way back from Le Mans!) I would defo recommend it.
Makes its cash from trade on the Seine, so hospitality and tourism play second fiddle, meaning the average quality of most things is quite good as they're catering for a local residential market as much as Les Rosbif's. So food and drink was, in the main, pretty good, and we only had one tourist tax experience. It also meant they would tend to respond in French if you tried, and in small shops/ supermarkets only French was spoken, which is nice if you like that sort of thing.
Every morning they jetwash the streets in the main tourist areas (as wasteful as that may or may not be, and of course if a dog dumps immediately after who cares). They do tend to trade quite heavily on having burnt Joan of Arc, but I suppose you would. The Cathedral light show is indeed very good, and they were prepping an on-shore beach between two of the bridges on the river, presumably for July/ August. Parks etc were being manicured with typically local pride.
Inevitably some things grate (the Observatory is open to the public at 21.30 on the first Saturday of the month and that's it), and there is a "very old clock" close to the Cathedral, but little info locally, wiki being your friend. Most of the tourism is limited to this small area, and we did struggle to find a lot for a toddler to do, but that was probably a lack of local knowledge rather than there being nothing. No Ubers were tipped over while we were there, and there was only one strike limited to a few tabbarded chaps outside some public building or other.
For adults on a short break (or on the way back from Le Mans!) I would defo recommend it.
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