Rouen / Joan of Arc / Balthazar

We had an enjoyable mooch around Rouen, this morning, starting with a breakfast of granola, fruit, and yoghurt accompanied, of course, by coffee in a small café called Prélude, which was on the corner just along the road from our apartment.

Rouen itself is beautiful, with an oddly distinctive architecture in the older buildings, which look as if they are about to fold down on themselves. There are loads of appealing restaurants and bars, and interesting little shops (and not a single Costa or Starbucks to be seen!). We stopped in La Bovary for a light lunch, retired for a mid-afternoon nap, and then went to the Joan of Arc exhibition.

I have to say that this was one of the best exhibitions of its type that I've ever been to. It's set in the Old Archbishop's Palace and you move in sequence from room to room, watching a filmed re-enactment of Joan's retrial (by which time she was long since executed). Through this device - the testimony of the witnesses - you learn about her life and death, plus an interesting chunk of history along the way. (Suffice to say, if I was France, I'd be glad to see the back of the England from the EU!)

We had pizza for dinner at a restaurant we'd spotted earlier in the day: Chez Pépé. Even allowing for the time difference, the inhabitants of Rouen seem to be on a different clock to us and this evening's meal was a good example of that; we were the first in the restaurant and the staff seemed quite bemused by our arrival. But, like everyone else, they were friendly and charming, and the pizza was fantastic.

And after that we walked over to Le 106 to see Balthazar. Every time we've seen them in the UK it has been at a smallish venue so, even though we were half expecting it, it was quite a surprise to see they'd packed out a venue that was at least four times bigger than anywhere we've seen them before. 

And they were excellent. Now beefed up to a five piece, the sound was excellent. They are reminiscent of the Bad Seeds, with that same heaviness and inventiveness but never losing sight of the song with a great emphasis on melody. High points of the perfomance for me were the drummer's solo saxophone (and that's not an instrument that I really like) and a song based around trombone loop set up by the keyboard player. It was a great gig!

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No scales
Reading: 'The Sound Of Tomorrow' by Mark Brend