Lying some 75 miles from the Seine estuary, Rouen is the historic capital of Normandy. Victor Hugo called Rouen ‘the city of a hundred spires’. Its Old Town is a delightful maze of narrow, cobblestone streets lined with fine half-timbered houses and wonderful gothic churches including the magnificent Cathedrale Notre Dame and the Eglise St. Maclou. Rouen’s Place du Vieux-Marche is famous as the site where Joan of arc was burned at the stake in 1431. Further upriver is the village of Giverny and the home of Claude Monet, who captured the beauty of Rouen in many of his paintings.