Rennes - Bretagne - France

Rennes is the capital of the Bretagne (Brittany) region of France, so naturally we visited! We kept to the old center, and didn't go inside very many buildings - even then, there was so much to see!

We parked at the Place des Lices, and caught our first glimpse of the typical Old Town architecture 

Then around the corner to the cathedral 

Fabulous interior, and very different than what we've seen before 

From there, we went to lunch (Thai! Yum!), then back to the Place de la République - across the canal, we could see elaborate buildings 

including the Musée des Beaux Arts 

We backtracked a bit to the XV century church of St Germain 

It had a different style of stained glass...

and some statues 

even on top of the pipe organ 

We walked through more interesting streets 

Here's the municipal swimming pool!

And the préfecture (where people go for residence permits and nationality interviews)

We arrived at the church of Notre Dame - it had been a temporary cathedral while the other was under repair, so we expected... more. But it was in pretty poor shape - if we had known, we would have skipped it, especially since it was the farthest site.

We headed back to the center, passing more of these...

On one of our rest stops, we noticed the basilica! But we had a fork in our road; see the basilica, or continue on to see 3 other buildings. 

We continued on to see the parliament building and plaza. In much of France, you can walk into a public building (like a courthouse or mayor's office) and just look around a bit. Unfortunately, the parliament building here required a guided tour arranged by the tourist office. So, we missed out 😔.

A couple of blocks on, we came to the opera house 

and, just across the plaza, the mayor's office 

Time to get back to our car! We enjoyed a stroll down this decorated (and somewhat cooler!) street

past this lively and classic section 

and back! Our drive home was very relaxing, with just a section or two of rush-hour traffic 😜

~~~

Here's our walking route (with some side trips):