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2, Place de Boston, Citis, Herouville Saint Clair, Basse-Normandie, 14200, France
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Main entrance
Vieux-St.-Etienne
Lateral Elevation of the Nave
Saint Etienne, above the gates to the men's abbey
I'll visit caen on first of march for a couple of days.
Any suggestions on what to do?!
Hi. There is a lot to do in Caen. Visit the chateau. It looks more like a fortress right in the middle of town. When you go inside, there is a very nice art museum on your right and several buildings and a garden on your left. Two of these buildings often hold exhibits of various kinds. One building is a museum of Norman life and is interesting. The art museum is also nice . . . not outstanding, but very nice. The little restaurant in the museum is quite good.
One thing you don't want to miss is the Peace Memorial. It is out on the edge of town (great bus service in Caen) and is well worth the trip. We went as a rainy day activity planning to spend a few hours. We spent 8 hours and didn't see it all. Take time to have a good dinner in their restaurant (included in one of the tickets) because you will need a break. The entire collection is very intense.
You will want to visit the Abbaye des Hommes and the Abbey des Dames, both within walking distance of the Chateau. Also, if you walk out the front of the Chateau, down the hill and to your left is a wonderful little medieval street with all sorts of restaurants and touristy shops if you like that sort of thing. (We do!) St. Pierre is directly across from the chateau and there are all sorts of stores nearby.
There is much else to do. You might want to check the local tourist bureau and see what interests you particularly.
Whatever you do, do not miss the Peace Memorial. 8^)
Have a good trip.
In the middle of the busy shoppingstreets of Caen, one suddenly stands eye to eye with the little but pretty Saint-Sauveur (Saint-Savior's) church. This was the parish church of the common Caen people and still it stands in the middle of the center of town. The surprise of this church is greater then with Saint-Etienne or Saint-Pierre, as this one is hidden in the streets and buildings of the old city centre.
The Musée de Normandie has been in the medieval castle precinct since 1963. It is located in the Governors' Lodge, which was the residence of the bailiff in the 14th Century, then the headquarters of the Captain of Caen and eventually became the residence of the Governor in charge of "the Castle and the City of Caen". The Governors' Lodge was almost entirely rebuilt in the 17th and 18th Centuries.
With the support of outstanding collections, the Musée de Normandie recounts the stages of the historical evolution of Normandy. Periodically integrating the earliest archeological finds into the visit, the museum presents a panorama of men and women's lives since the remote paleolithic to the settlement of the Vikings in the lower Seine valley (10th Century).
Weapons, jewels, everyday utensils, any piece of history revealed by excavations are exhibited in rooms devoted to archeology and illustrated by maps, scale models and historical information so as to guide visitors through some long and badly known periods.
When my in-laws decided to visit us in Paris, my FIL one request was that he wanted to possibly go out to Normandy and see the US D-Day landing beaches. My husband and I thought this would be a great idea and started looking at how would could all head over to the area.
My husband and I do not have a car in Paris as we take the Metro or RER trains wherever we need to go. As a result we began by looking at how we could get to Caen by train and/or rental car. We soon ruled out taking the train because it seemed to only take us to the Normandy are and then we were on our own on how to get to each specific historical site. Also, because we cancelled our US car insurance, the price of renting a car was going to be astronomical for such a short period of time. We also were not too keen on possibly getting lost and not even knowing how to ask anyone for directions.
In the end, we decided to go with a tour bus company. We found that Cityrama had a 1 day tour to Normandy that would take us to all the places we wanted to see and the price included entrance fees to the Caen Peace Museum and lunch. We did hear from different people that taking a bus tour would not allow us to spend enough time at each location, but we decided to chance it anyway.
I know a lot of people asociate Normandy with just D-Day and if you're relatively young, you probably only know the area because of recent movies/shows (Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, etc.). Normandy is a beautiful area of France. Yes, there are signs of war in random places like highway roundabout statues and monuments and small local museums, but today it is a quiet, green area with lots of little small towns scattered here and there... I can imagine it was the same 60+ years ago.
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