Charleville-Mézières: The Place Ducale, Rimbaud and the Meuse

Required Activities

• Paddle the Meuse downstream from Charleville-Mézières towards Monthermé, following the river as it turns into the Ardenne gorge, and finish where the Semoy comes in at the Monthermé meander — this is a working navigation shared with barges, so the locks are portages

• Walk the arcades right round the Place Ducale and look for where the symmetry breaks: the roofs lost to wartime bombing have been rebuilt one at a time to get it back. Then pick out the three colours Charleville was built in — blue slate, ochre ashlar, red brick — and follow the grid of Charles de Gonzague's new town out from the square

• Go into the Musée Rimbaud in the Vieux Moulin, the mill Charles de Gonzague ordered in 1626 and Métezeau designed with a monumental front so that it would answer the Porte de France when you look down from the Place Ducale — stand on the square first and check that it still does. It ground its last flour in 1887 and became the Rimbaud museum in 1969

• Stand on the place Winston-Churchill, a hundred metres east of the Place Ducale, and wait for the hour: the Grand Marionnettiste, ten metres of automaton built into the facade of the Institut international de la marionnette, plays one of twelve scenes of the story of the four sons of Aymon and the horse Bayard on every hour from 10am to 9pm