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Few French cities carry their history as visibly as Rouen. The capital of Normandy rises from the south bank of the Seine in a dense weave of half-timbered facades, Gothic spires, and cobbled lanes that have survived, not always intact, the full sweep of European history from Viking settlement to the Second World War. It is a city that rewards attention, where a turn down an unmarked alley can reveal a medieval courtyard or a Renaissance doorway that would be a centrepiece attraction anywhere else.

The old city is compact enough to cover on foot, and most visitors find themselves drawn first to the cathedral quarter. Notre-Dame de Rouen, the subject of Monet's famous series of paintings capturing its facade in different lights, remains one of the most photographed Gothic structures in France. The spire, cast iron and added in the nineteenth century, is the tallest in the country. A short walk away, the Place du Vieux-Marché marks the spot where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431, and the modern church built there in her memory, with its sweeping curved roof and stained glass salvaged from an earlier church on the site, is a striking piece of twentieth-century architecture set against the surrounding timber-framed buildings.