The Castle was built c 1060 by William the Conqueror. On Christmas 1182, a royal court celebration brought together Henry ll and his sons, Richard the Lionheart and John Lackland, receiving more than a thousand knights. With an area of 5.5 hectares, it is one of the largest castles in Western Europe. The castle, which was used as a barracks during World War ll, was bombed in 1944 and seriously damaged. Today the castle serves as a museum that houses the Museum of Fine Arts of Caen, Museum of Normandy, Saint George’s Church, a garden showing plants cultivated in the Middle Ages and a university located in the centre of the area.

Weapons ready

Overlooking a dry moat

Church of Saint-Jean was founded in the seventh century on a Roman road crossing the marshes of the lower valley of the Orne.

In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between.

A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth… then again, things can get askew over the centuries