One of my favorite sites from my visit to Rouen last summer; Saint-Maclou’s Aître.
It’s kind of hidden behind one of Rouen’s many beautiful cathedrals. Walking through a small passage between medieval buildings into a large courtyard also of ancient medieval architecture. Looking closely at the crossbeams you start to notice the many skulls, bones, angels, swords, and bells carved deeply in the wood. Somehow it reminds me of a pirate village, but alas it’s not that…
A mass cemetery built for the dead from the Black Plague, and today houses a fine art school.
What seems like morbid decoration, but what foresight to commemorate for centuries to come the awful suffering that struck down Europe.
A real hidden treasure!
