Rennes, France: Visiting for the first time

In my last blog, I shared 5 Things You Need To Consider When Traveling During A Pandemic. Today, I want to actually talk about my time in Rennes. Even though I have been to France many (many) times in my life, this was my first time in Rennes. I stayed for a week, and it was so much fun. I did and saw a lot of things, although a week may not seem long enough to explore a city. Allow me to take you through Rennes with me! Don’t forget to watch my Rennes vlogs on YouTube for visuals that go with this blog. Allons-y on va découvrir Rennes! – Let’s go discover Rennes!

Rennes

France is divided in 13 regions and Rennes is the capital of Brittany, also known as Bretagne. The region of Brittany is France’s northernwesternmost region. The city is known for its architecture, mostly the medieval half-timbered houses, which you can see at the Old Town. Other than that, the Cathedral and Parc du Thabor are also hotspots in Rennes. I will definitely talk about Old Town and Parc du Thabor later. Some other things Rennes is known for are the Vilaine river, Musée des Beaux-arts and Champs Libres. Musée des Beaux-arts displays works by Picasso, da Vinci and Michelangelo.

Old Town & Parc du Thabor

I walked through the old town a couple of times. Believe me when I say that the medieval half-timbered houses are actually quite cute. I think they represent for Rennes the houses along the canal streets in Amsterdam. And I like that. When we talk about Parc du Thabor, it’s something else! As you can see in another vlog, there is so much to see at Parc du Thabor. Like there is a duck pond (with racist white ducks chasing the brown ducks). All jokes aside, there are multiple gardens, a lot of flowers and they even have an aviary.

The aviary at Parc du Thabor was such a beautiful sight, we don’t really have aviaries in the Netherlands. Therefore it was so beautiful for me to see all the different birds. There were so many! Like green, red and yellow birds, a black chicken of some sort. If you check the vlog for Parc du Thabor, you can see for certain birds from what parts of the world they are actually from. Interesting! Other than that, we actually walked from Rennes City Center to Parc du Thabor, it wasn’t that long of a walk and the weather was lovely. Lastly, what is interesting about the park is that you have these signs for other cities and at what distance they are. Like Paris was 300 something km from Rennes and Dakar was 3998 km.

Day trip to Nantes & Carrière Miséry

During my stay in Rennes, we decided to do a day trip to Nantes, which is about an hour from Rennes. Nantes is located on the Loire River in the Upper Brittany region of western France. Nantes has a long history as a port and industrial center and a lot of people visit the medieval Château des Ducs de Bretagne. However, we went to visit Jardin Extraordinaire at Ancienne Carrière Miséry. Which is a beautiful garden with an amazing waterfall. You can watch it in one of my other France vlogs too!

Alma Mall

Another thing I loved about Rennes was the Alma Mall! It is such a big mall. Also, they definitely have different stores than we have here in the Netherlands (hello Sephora!). Other than that, I think it was great to walk around and see the different shops they had. I loved the sneaker stores with dope and authentic cool brands. I did not do a lot of shopping actually, but I definitely love windowshopping!

All in all, I can say that my first trip to Rennes was amazing! I think that if you want to stay a week, that is perfect. Not too long and not too short. I think that Rennes is also a great city if you are into museums, parks and other things to do. What about you? Have you ever been to France, Rennes or Nantes? Let a girl know in the comments!