Guillaume Bookshop

Caen is a city steeped in history and culture, with a host of lovely independent bookshops! One of which seriously stand out, you simply have to visit it. It’s the Guillaume bookshop right in front of you. Since 1903, this beautiful bourgeois house has been home to precious books! The fact that Caen has the highest number of independent bookshops in France is no doubt due to its history. Indeed, Caen is home to one of the country’s oldest universities, founded in 1432 by the Kingdom of England, to which it belonged at the time. Universities have always encouraged the demand for books and enabled bookshops to flourish. However, Caen also has a very strong historical link with printing. For several reasons, the whole Normandy region was particularly gifted in this area. These include the wealth of its abbeys, which were learning centres where manuscripts were copied, as well as its proximity to Paris and England. The intellectual and commercial exchanges between these two cultural centres made the region an ideal location for printing workshops. From the Renaissance onwards, the region was home to a large number of book-related trades. Since then, the tradition has continued and Caen has an active literary life, frequently organising fairs and meetings with authors. If, like me, you’re a bookworm and a bookshop lover, be sure to visit this bookshop while you are in Caen!