HELEN FRYER is from Covingham but is spending a year in the French city of Lille, working at the Pasteur Institute.

Helen, 21, is a student at Keele University, where she is studying French and Biology.

I've been doing my tourist thing again. This time my victim was Rouen, where I met my Granny on a trip with a posse of very friendly buddies who very kindly smuggled me into their guided tours.

One thing you can't help but notice in the main square is the church of Joan of Arc. It's a post-war building, rebuilt with the original 14th century stained glass windows that had been removed before the old one was bombed.

It looks like a shark from the outside, with an oversized roof of grey slate stretching across the square. It even covers a market place containing tanks full of live lobsters that flail their legs piteously when taken out to be examined by the customers.

The inside of the church roof is meant to look like a boat's hull turned inside-out, (if that helps at all!), and it all works surprisingly well. A cross outside marks the spot where Joan was burned for heresy by the English in 1431, and a museum at the back of a souvenir shop can tell you her story with a monotonous-recorded commentary in a choice of four languages, and scenes from her life represented by slightly wonky life-size models.

In another museum just off the square you can see where the 17th century playwrights Pierre and Thomas Corneille were born and wrote some of their plays.

There was a Christmas market around the huge cathedral, selling toys and ornaments from wooden huts and gorgeous sweet waffles (gaufres) with icing sugar on top.

The only trouble is eating the things. If you breathe in, the sugar goes up your nose. If you breathe out or laugh over one while talking to your Granny, for instance, you turn your venerable relative into a snowman.

The other staple of these markets seems to be bright pink candy floss, known as "barbapapa" meaning "daddy's beard". Hmm . . . I hope my dad's stayed clean-shaven while I've been away.