The city of Rouen in Normandy provides you with many amazing sites to see. Most of them are Joan of Arc related, but there's also the astronomical clock, an amazing Gothic church that makes you feel like you're walking through a Robin Hood movie, and other great historical photo opportunities.
It may sound like the spiel is slightly practiced, but hey, I'm a tour manager, it comes with the territory. Now on a recent trip to Rouen, despite the fact that my passengers decided to spend their hour and a half in McDonald's, I decided to visit the Joan of Arc museum for myself.
The Joan of Arc museum is located in this dark crypt below a souvenir shop opposite
the Place de Vieux Marche where Joan was burnt in 1431. You pay your money
and head down this dark stairway, and when the door closes behind you
blocking out all natural light you think to yourself, hey, Tres Ambiance.
This is until you get to the bottom, and the entire exhibit is pitch black,
and you're forced to wander around a very long, very dark tunnel staring at
a pitch black exhibit.
You now no longer think this is part of the ambiance, and strange images from Silence of the Lambs wander through your mind.
You wonder to yourself if the Joan of Arc museum is nothing more than a front
used to lure unsuspecting Australian tourists to their deaths. You panic
slightly, but forge ahead, feeling along the walls as you go, stumbling once
or twice because there is no light at all, and you can't see to place your
feet, and the entire thing will scare the hell out of you if you give
yourself over to the fear, and the darkness, and the fact that you're 13,000
miles from home and it could be days before anyone realises you're missing.
Once you reach the end of the tunnel, you climb back up a series of dark
stairs, wander bleary eyed back into the souvenir shop, and half hoping it's
not some cultural thing where all museums in France are meant to be pitch
black, you say to the proprietor, "Pardon madame, ne'pas de lumiere."
(Pardon me madam, there's no light.)
At this point the old lady who runs the museum turns bright red, and
launches into a stream of tearful French apologies, complete with wailing
and gnashing of teeth you wouldn't get anywhere in Australia, and certainly
not in England.
She had of course forgotten to turn the lights on, and after more tears, and screams, and offers of refunded money, she ushered me back into the crypt for a second visit complete with lights.
There was less ambiance perhaps this time, and it was slightly a rip off even with the
lights on, but the "Ne'pas de lumiere" story makes it four euros well spent.
I'm assuming the lady was petrified I was gonna come back with Le Lawsuit,
but at the end of the day the story I have to tell now is much more valuable
to me than any settlement I could ever want to get.
