Visit the Lady's Abbey, founded around the year 1060 by Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror The Abbaye-aux-Dames was home to a community of Benedictine nuns until the French Revolution. After this painful period, the conventual buildings became, in succession, a military garrison, a poorhouse, a hospital in 1823 and a hospice in 1908. The buildings were restored in 1984 in order to house the Regional Council of Lower Normandy. The cloisters gallery presents a beautiful example of fan-shaped vaults. The abbey church, dedicated to the Holy Trinity on 18 June 1066, remains a masterpiece of Norman Romanesque architecture, despite some 19th-century renovations. Queen Matilda rests in the choir under a slab of black Tournai marble. The capitals of the apse offer a variety of more or less fantastical animals drawn from the bestiary.

Visit William's the Conqueror Abbey. The city of Caen has some of the most important monuments from the era of the Dukes of Normandy. William entrusted the Benedictine monk Lanfranc, builder of Bec Abbey, with the construction of the two abbeys. The abbey church of St. Stephen, although largely rebuilt during the Gothic period, is a remarkable example of Norman Romanesque architecture. It inspired a great number of English churches built after the Conquest in 1066. William is buried here. Spared by the bombings in 1944, because it was used as a refuge for the citizenry of Caen, the Abbaye-aux-Hommes became the City Hall in 1965. The architecture and interior decorations of the 18th-century buildings are not to be missed.

Unique museum! An immersion into the heart of 20th century history. A century marked by the World War II, a conflict that resulted in the death of 60 million soldiers and civilians. A century of major geopolitical upheavals, marked by Europe’s determination to preserve peace.