These places are like three different faces of Bretagne. Rennes is a lively university city with young people and touch of intellect. Old medieval center is full of small restaurants and terasses, along the river are bold 18 hundred facades. New futuristic buildings are rising even around old medieval houses.
Old medieval houses of Rennes were partly built of wood
St Malo is a small idyllic, but touristic town surrounded by walls on the Atlantic coast. Spent again time at the beach just watching the sea and people strolling around the low tide area.
Brest is a commercial harbour and naval base of French army. The whole city was bombarded to ruins by the allied troops during WWII as there were German navy base at that time. After the war the city was rebuilt, somewhere I saw it named the ugliest city of France. To me it looks little like a former Soviet city, but somehow I liked the roughness of the city.
Brest monuments
Our hotel in Brest is down at the harbour area which is a mixture of harbour life and lively restaurant street.
Fishing boats at Brest harbour
In Brest sightseeings worth visiting are Oceanopolis and Marin museum, which is located in the old fortress of Brest. It tells about the long history of ship building here. Brest is an important ocean research center and also Oceanopolis is more like a science center than aquarium.
Oceanopolis is both scientific and entertaining.Learned that sharks are not so dangerous as thought, elephants, crocodiles, snakes and even wasps cause more deaths than sharks.
Enjoyed watching the fishes, but even bigger experience was seeing a wild delfin jumping in the harbour area during our evening stroll.
In St Malo is a memorial of resistance. This is perhaps a little difficult topic in Bretagne, because Nazis gave Bretons some privileges they had missed. Part of them were in the resistance though.
St Malo coast during low tidePeaceful time at the beachInside the walls of the town.Reflections in Our Ladie’s church St Malo
In Rennes we stayed in a small hotel at the residential area. although I was wondering did I make a wrong choise when dragging our suitcases and trying to find the place. However finally it was a delighting small hotel and a frequent bus connection to downtown was found.
Hotel Arcantis had a relaxed atmosphere with funny surprises.
In the cafeteria was a jukebox, old comic books and funny old-time things.
Breakfast at small Hotel Arcantis Rennes needed some technical skills
At the breakfast you prepared your own juice and coffee and cut your bread with a giljotin but everything was really fresh then.
Now Goodbye Bretagne we will meet again. Train from Brest to Paris is waiting.
Interrail tickets had to be filled before every trip
