Discovery of the boucle de seine normande nature park

Snaking along the bends of the seine river, the park which is an alignment of forests, orchards and pastures provides a green oasis in an area pinched between two large industrial centers, rouen and le havre.

Au fil de l'eau - sentier du patrimoine  Departure point: the Pont-Audemer Tourism Office.  By taking this walking tour you will discover the history, the architecure and the activities done in this beautiful town. The bridge, the castle, the ancient defense walls, the churches, the houses, the navigation skills will be evoked as well as the local markets.

Point de la roque  Departure point: Saint Samson church plazza or the La Roque lighthouse. Church from the 19th century and its old cemetery.  You will discover numerous panoramas on the Seine estuary till the Normandy Bridge, limestone cliffs, the La Roque lighthouse with its unique panoramic viewpoint.

Linen museum  A very important place for selling and buying linen, the village of Routot welcomes you and invites you to discover the history, the cultivation, the weaving and all the rest about this fibre.

Maison des templiers  Maison des Templiers is a fine example of 13th-century civil architecture, whose old walls resisted the flames that engulfed the historic quarter in 1940. Since then it has been a place of memory, housing a museum that keeps alive Caudebec’s past, aided by archives, fine engravings and many small treasures.

Victor hugo museum  Only six months before the tragedy, Léopoldine Hugo married Charles Vacquerie, the son of a very successful family of boat-builders. When he heard the news of his beloved daughter's death Victor Hugo was devastated. But his grief was later channelled into the creation of perhaps his finest poetic work, Les Contemplations. Here, in the poem A Villequier, Hugo movingly reveals the depth of his great sorrow.  In the Victor Hugo Museum, set out in the Vacquerie House, there is a strong evocation of the mid 19th-century. The rooms with their original furniture, portraits, books, photographs and letters create a realistic impression of a family home. The tragic couple lie buried alongside Victor Hugo's daughter Adèle, in the local churchyard.

Chemin des courtils  Departure point: Bouquelon church plazza.  Typical Courtils landscape (small parcels from the road to the marsh) with its ponds, its channels and its many wilows that were cut. Courtils Natural Reserve, 15 panoramas on the road that goes down to the marshland. Many cottages, medieval houses built out of rock, manor house from the 17th c...

La route des abbayes  The valley of the Seine, an avenue of trade and communication for centuries, has many vestiges of medieval abbeys. Saint-Georges de Boscherville, built in the 9th century on the site of a pagan sanctuary, was rebuilt in the 12th century by the Benedictine monks and is now a perfect illustration of Norman Romanesque architecture (a massive porch with towers preceding the unvaulted nave). Jumièges Abbey (on the right), founded in the 7th century, was raised in the 10th and 11th centuries. The church of Notre-Dame, completed in 1067, was probably inspired by a Carolingian structure (as suggested by the tribune in the wall). Saint-Wandrille Abbey, which was mighty in the Carolingian period, was abandoned in the late 9th century and reoccupied in 960. It was restructured in the 17th century, but experienced serious damage in the last century.