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Rennes is - outwardly at least - uncharacteristic of the province, with its Neoclassical layout and pompous major buildings. What potential it had to be a picturesque tourist spot was destroyed in 1720, when a drunken carpenter managed to set light to virtually the whole city. Only the area known as Les Lices , at the junction of the canalized Ille and the River Vilaine, was undamaged. The remodelling 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 at any rate, is something of a patchwork quilt, consisting of grand eighteenth-century public squares interspersed with intimate little alleys of half-timbered houses. It's quite a pleasant city to stroll 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, radiates 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 originally the venue for tournaments - that is, jousting "lists". It was here, in 1337, that the hitherto unknown Bertrand du Guesclin, then aged 17, fought and defeated several older opponents. This set him on his career as a soldier, during which he was to save Rennes when it was under siege by the English. However, after the Bretons were defeated 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 all but ruined by a major conflagration in 1994; the exact circumstances remain somewhat mysterious, but it's thought the blaze was sparked by a stray flare set off during a demonstration by Breton fishermen. Since then, the entire structure has been rebuilt and restored, and is once more topped by an impressive array of gleaming gilded statues.
If you head south from the Palais de Justice, you'll soon reach the River Vilaine , which flows 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, than the north, and 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 artworks - which include drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Fra Lippo Lippi and Dürer - are not usually on public display. Instead you'll find a number of 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 history and culture of Brittany, which has been closed for several years while its exhibits are moved to a new, high-tech museum, due to open on a separate site.
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