CAEN , capital and largest city of Basse Normandie, is not a place where you'll want to spend much time: in the months of fighting in 1944, it was devastated. Nonetheless, the city that nine hundred years ago was the favoured residence of William the Conqueror remains - in parts - impressive.

Its central feature is a ring of ramparts that no longer have a castle to protect, and, though there are the scattered spires and buttresses of two abbeys and eight old churches, roads and roundabouts fill the wide spaces where prewar houses stood. Approaches are along thunderous dual carriageways through industrial suburbs now prospering once more following an influx of high-tech newcomers