Car Hire in Rennes, France
Rennes is - outwardly at least - uncharacteristically of the province, featuring its neoclassical layout and pompous major buildings. What possibilities it had to be a scenic tourist spot was destroyed in 1720, when a drunken carpenter managed to set light to just about the entire city. Just the area known as Les Lices, at the junction of the canalized Ille, along with the River Vilaine, was undamaged. The refurbishing of the rest of the city was handed over to Parisian architects, not in deference to the capital but in an attempt to rival it. The result, on the north side of the river in any case, is something of a patchwork quilt, comprised of grand eighteenth-century public squares interspersed with intimate little alleys of half-timbered houses. It's quite an enjoyable city to walk around for half a day, but it lacks a cohesive personality.
Rennes' surviving medieval quarter, bordered by the canal to the west and the river to the south, extends from Porte Mordelaise, the old ceremonial entrance to the city. Just to the northeast of the porte, the place des Lices, nowadays dominated by two empty market halls, was formerly the place for events - that is, jousting "lists". It was here, in 1337, that the hitherto unknown Bertrand du Guesclin, then aged 17, fought and overcame a number of older opponents. This set him on his career as a soldier, through which he was to save Rennes when it was under siege by the English. However, after the Bretons were conquered at Auray in 1364, he fought for the French, and twice invaded Brittany.
The one central building to escape the 1720 fire was the Palais de Justice on rue Hoche downtown. Ironically, however, the Palais was almost ruined by a major conflagration in 1994; the exact circumstances remained somewhat bizarre, however, it is thought that the blaze was sparked by a stray flare embarked during a demonstration by Breton fishermen. Since that time, the entire structure has been rebuilt and restored, and is once more topped by an outstanding array of vivid gilded statues.
If you head south from the Palais de Justice, you'll eventually make it to the River Vilaine, which streams through the centre of Rennes, narrowly confined into a steep-sided channel. The south bank of the river is every bit as busy, if not busier, as opposed to the north, and also at 20 quai Émile-Zola on the south bank a former university building houses the city's
Musée des Beaux Arts (daily except Tues 10am-noon & 2-6pm;). Unfortunately, many of its finest works of art - which include drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Fra Lippo Lippi and Dürer - aren't usually on public display. Instead you'll find numerous indifferent Impressionist views of Normandy by the likes of Boudin and Sisley, interspersed with the occasional treasure such as Pieter Boel's startlingly contemporary-looking seventeenth-century animal studies, Veronese's depiction of a flying Perseus Rescuing Andromeda , and Pierre-Paul Rubens' Tiger Hunt , enlivened by the occasional lion. The same building was long home also to the Musée de Bretagne, covering the culture and history of Brittany, which has been closed for several years while its exhibits are transferred to a new, high-tech museum, due to open to the public on a separate site.
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