The Men's Abbey In Caen: St. Etienne

We took the #2 bus from Memorial to the Hotel de Ville and first looked at the Men's Abbey and its St. Etienne abbey church, one of the great examples of later Romanesque architecture.

The larger abbey complex

Helpful model

Heads of state at the 60th anniversary of D-Day

Today's wedding; where's the bride?

The abbey church--St. Etienne's--is so hemmed
in you can really only see the west facade and a
smidgeon of the bow

Anne Houle's nearby sculpture, Monument to the Memory of
Destroyed Buildings

The two more or less identical towers

Nave...not a whiff of Gothic here; it was consecrated in 1066,
I think; a big year for William

Elevation; not much light, not much height; six-
part ribbed vaulting

Some thousand or more Caen residents survived the month-long
battle for the city by taking refuge in the abbey church

The Brits and Canadians were alerted and kept their fire away
from the abbey; unlike several Caen churches, St. Etienne was
thus relatively unscathed

Nave vaulting and crossing

Aisle

Tomb of William, who died in MLXXXVII; after the Hugenots
and the Revolution got through with him, only a thigh bone
remains

Chancel, altar; remodeled in the 14th or so,
hence the pointy windows

In the Sacristy (they leave the door ajar so you
can see it), a 16th century "portrait" of William
in the manner of Henry VIII

Starboard bow

I can't say "our set is complete," but this is one more of the
important pre-Gothics we've finally gotten to see

Caen Scenes

Our last visit to Caen featured The Memorial, Caen's superb museum of D-Day, the Battle for Caen, and WWII. Previous visits were cursory, featuring the citadel or other similar sites. We were not yet fully into the architectural nor cathedral thing. We have made amends with this visit: seven churches, all well worth visiting, and those just along the main drag from the Men's Abbey to the Women's Abbey, twelve blocks or so. Although much of Caen was wrecked in WWII--it took Montgomery a month to take the place--much remains, and it is of the greatest historic and architectural significance. I am not sure how I will deal with the seven churches...maybe not seven posts! but I hope to do some little justice to these great sites. What follow below are simply some street scenes along the way.

We camped at The Memorial, which presently features Seward Johnson's sculpture 
Embracing Peace, from Eisenstaedt's very famous VJ Day photo from August, 1945;
the French and feminists generally find this depiction objectionable, depending on
how it is presented; personally, I don't quite see what it has to do with Europe; forcibly
kissing a woman (a man?!) in France is sexual assault, a crime

OK, so moving right along, we are on the Rue de Maine Drague
between the Men's and Women's Abbeys; what? you didn't know
that Caen has both His and Hers abbeys? This is because William
and Mathilde wanted to get married, but they were fifth cousins
(how could you even calculate that?) and the Pope saw a great
business opportunity, and, voila!, we have His and Hers abbeys,
in Caen, William's capital; the Pope and William were to have
further profitable dealings (e.g., England) 

Largest hydrangea yet, at least since Albi

Typical shop along Rue de Maine Drague (it's a pedestrian thing)

Home of Malherbe, father of French poetry (Rebecca, are you
following this?)

Another beautiful old shop; the French are still really into books, print; how
retrograde!

More Main Drag Caen

You see these things all over France, and particularly in Normandy; the French
are mindful, grateful; still; good on them!

We wandered down the Rue de Froide and fell into the tractor beam of the Heula
shop; we have loved the Heula humor andimages for years, and here was a whole
shop

Their stuff is so smart; I could post a hundred images; look at it! buy it! 

A church not visited, apparently another ruin...next time

I had just vowed never to photograph any more half-timbered buildings that
were not at least pre-Christian; but then these two 16th century wonders
appeared (below them are a shoe store and a discount fashion store...sic transit,
Gloria)

Passing by the great citadel; we'll be back

Street scene: so we're about to walk into St. Peter's, the big parish church in Caen,
when, across the street, there is this large teenage group, and one of the kids is doing
some sort of break-dancing routine, and then the Audi pulls up and a black guy hops
out and shows them how it's really done, stopping traffic along the street, and it goes
on and on and on (to the dismay of the Mini driver)...France; wonderful!

After St. Peter's, we hit a restaurant row kind of place...actually two blocks of
nothing but restaurants, both sides...and we finally succumbed for lunch 

Where Vicki finally found a drink to like

Dives Sur Mer

It seems like every little town along the coast claims it was the place from which William set sail to conquer England. But all appear to agree it was Dives sur Mer where he built much of his fleet and amassed supplies and soldiers and horses, etc. So we wanted to see Dives sur Mer.

So there it is, the estuarial harbor as it now looks; to the right
is the opening that leads to the Channel

Driving through Dives, things got more and more interesting,
so we decided to stop for a nosy (Kiwi: look around); we'll
return to the church later

Very old house on a main street

But here was the knock-out: Les Halles, the town's covered
market, built by ship carpenters in the 14th century, in continual
use for five centuries now; never altered; we seriously
considered staying over for the weekly market, but, well, the
markets we've seen on this trip so far have been almost entirely
crap

Les Halles exterior

The Lieutenancy, the harbor's government house (but originally
a fortified residence)

And then another little knock-out: the 16th
century Hostellerie Guillaume le Conquerant

No less than Henri IV and Louis XIV stayed here; plus a few
miscellaneous kings, queens, prime ministers, celebrities

Some of the ornamentation

Ditto

Ditto again

Encore

Lots of other pretty stuff in this town 

Inside the 13th century parish church

The church's story: in the year 1000 (possibly
rounded off...), some fisherman found in their
nets a large statue of Jesus in crucifixion pose;
carvers attempted a cross to match, but to no
avail; and then, some years later, the cross came
up in some other nets; and then it  was decided
to build the church; in any case, either the
Hugenots (French Protestants) or the Revolution
burnt the "relics"; sic transit, Gloria  

Of rather more interest, the 16th-17th century
list of local boys and girls who accompanied
William to England

Basic advice, however, is, if you want to see this
church, visit sooner than later

The View From Houlgate

We proceeded on in the direction of Caen, stopping along the coast at Houlgate and then at Dives sur Mer. The former has a great view of the coast, all the way from Le Havre to Cabourg. And the latter was the place where William the Conqueror built his ships and massed his forces in 1066. And more.

The beaches at Houlgate and on toward Cabourg

Other way, to Le Havre

And the great port

But, more specifically, the beaches...these are Juno and Sword Beaches from
D-Day, up toward the top

The viewing point, atop a hill on the coast, has a great table d'orientation

Thus

Including far off places beyond the horizon

A sailing class out on the water; at this point we were wondering where the gun
emplacements were, what with such a commanding view...

And then we realized we were standing on one...the table d'orientation a great
instance of up-cycling

Driving on through the little beach community of Houlgate

Right on the beach

Some real beauties, too