Rouen

Monet painted this Gothic facade over thirty times in shifting light, and its cast-iron spire outstrips every other French cathedral's. On summer nights a show projects Monet's colours on the front. Richard the Lionheart's heart lies buried here.

A gilded one-handed astronomical clock sits on an arch over the street, with foot traffic below. The belfry beside it shows the clockwork and the cathedral over the rooftops. A shepherd and his sheep are carved into the vault under the arch; look up.

Joan of Arc died at the stake here in 1431; a marker in the ground shows the spot. The church of Sainte-Jeanne-d'Arc beside it is modern, roofed like an upturned boat, yet set with 16th-century glass taken down to escape wartime bombing.

A plague-era ossuary courtyard where the timber gallery posts are carved with a dance of death. A mummified cat found during building work is displayed behind glass set into a wall, and some visitors come just for it. The courtyard is free to enter.

It holds one of Monet's Rouen Cathedral series among an Impressionist collection that ranks high outside Paris. Entry to the permanent collection is free, so rainy days can bring you back again and again. It is closed on Tuesdays.

Inside the old archbishop's palace, where Joan's rehabilitation trial was held, the trial records are replayed in film and sound. It moves room to room on a fixed schedule, so the entry time matters. Headphones let you choose your language.

A late Gothic church smothered in flame-like Flamboyant tracery, its porch fanning out in five arches. The lanes around it hold Rouen's densest cluster of half-timbered houses, leaning against each other.

Monet lived here over forty years, and his house and garden with the water-lily pond remain. The gardens run from spring until autumn, with no entry in winter. Timed tickets must be bought ahead; the first morning slot finds the Japanese bridge emptiest.

Inside a Seine loop, a roofless abbey ruin lifts two towers skyward, praised as the loveliest ruin in France. After the Revolution it served as a quarry and its stone was carted off. A small car ferry crosses the river nearby.

A chalk hill east of the centre whose top shows the Seine sweeping round the city and its spires in one view. The path climbs steep grass, slippery after rain. At sunset people go up to see Rouen light up below.

A former abbey church beside the town hall, as big as the cathedral but plainer, so its height reads more clearly. Its Cavaille-Coll organ, installed in 1890, is famous. The old abbey garden behind it is a park where locals eat lunch.

A lavish late Gothic building raised for the Parliament of Normandy and still a courthouse. Shrapnel scars from the 1944 bombing were left on its walls deliberately. Beneath the courtyard is the medieval Jewish Maison Sublime, shown on tourist office tours.

A museum of ironwork, from keys and locks to shop signs and door knockers, filling the deconsecrated church of Saint-Laurent. Old shop signs hang in rows beneath the Gothic vault. It backs onto the fine arts museum, so pair the two.

The one round tower left of the castle Philip Augustus built at Rouen early in the 13th century. In 1431, during her trial, Joan of Arc was brought here and threatened with torture. Walking from the station down into town, you pass it.

Ruins of the castle Richard the Lionheart built in the late 1190s on a chalk cliff above Les Andelys. Its walls overlook the Seine bending in a great loop. Rouen lies forty minutes or so away by car, then a climb on foot from the village.

Founded in the 7th century, this Benedictine abbey still houses monks who sing Mass in Gregorian chant. The old abbey church is a ruin, its pillars standing in rows. Anyone may attend Mass, and the abbey shop sells goods made by the monks.

A coastal village where the sea carved white chalk cliffs into an arch in the shape of an elephant's trunk and a rock needle, painted many times by Monet. The clifftop path looks down on the arches. Rock paths exposed only at low tide need a tide table first.

An old harbour town where the Seine meets the sea, its tall narrow houses wrapped around the old basin. Shipwrights built Sainte-Catherine church entirely of wood, so its roof looks like an upturned hull. The drive from Rouen takes roughly sixty minutes.