Catching a Rainbow

Rennes situated at the eastern most end of Brittany embraced by ancient rhythms of the world, is the regions current capital.

This ancient town, built at the confluence of two rivers, the Ille and the Villaine - was built by the Britons of Armorica in 57BC. These people, who also gave their name to the département of the Cotes d’Armor, joined forces in a lose coalition against the Roman occupation of the time. The rivers also lend their names to the département in which Rennes is situated - Ille et Villaine, one of the four counties of Brittany.

In 58BC several Roman emissaries were held captive in Rennes, which forced Giaus Julius Caesar to intervene and suppress the peoples of the region. Britons of Armorica had refused the customary tribute to the Roman Empire, and had subdued the neighbouring dioceses of Vannes and Nantes, thus forming a powerful, though vassal, state. Rennes had also received help from across the channel and this further persuaded Caesar to cross the channel and put down the uprising in Great Britain.

Rennes once again came under attack in 275AD when the Barbarians threatened to overrun the city. As a consequence a large brick wall, made from the local red clay, was constructed to enclose the town and Rennes became known as the Red Town.

In the Middle Ages, starting in the 5th Century, the Bretons had taken charge of the western end of the Armoricain peninsula calling it Little Briton which then became known as Brittany and eventually Bretagne – while the Franks populated the rest of the region. In 1851, when the Bretons were strong enough, they declared full independence from the rest of France.

In 1356 during the war of succession, the English under the command of the Duke of Lancaster laid siege to Rennes. The siege, which was finally broken by Bertrand du Guesclin, was in support of Charles de Monfort’s claim for the title of the Duchy of Brittany.

In 1491, it was the French army of Charles VIII, that once again attacked Rennes and although successful through out the rest of Brittany, Rennes alone resisted and refused to be brought to her knees. Threatened with total destruction the ruler of Brittany, Duchess Anne sued for peace. She married the King of France and thus ended the history of Breton independence.

Rennes has not always been the capital of Brittany or the four départements of Morbihan, Finisterre, Cotes d’Armor and Ille et Villaine. The traditional and some say more inclusive definition of Brittany also includes a fifth département, that of Loire-Atlantique.

Field Marshal Henri Pétain annexed the département of Loire-Atlantique, from the rest of Brittany in 1941. Pétain was the head of the puppet administration running France throughout the German occupation, of a good part of the country, during the Second World War.

The separation of the fifth county was for two reasons.
Firstly: it was done as punishment to the Bretons who actively supported the Free French National Council of Charles de Gaulle in exile in London.
And secondly: as an attempt to crush Breton Nationalism, which had long been demanding a Breton free state.
Thus ended the thousand-year rule of the city of Nantes, as the capital of the independent Duchy of Brittany… that honour moved to Rennes.

When the Duchy of Brittany become part of France via the dowry of Queen Anne’s daughter, in 1514. The right to have a separate parliament was negotiated and preserved for future generations.
The parliament in Brittany, founded in 1551 held sessions in Rennes until 1561 thus enhancing the towns importance. However, the parliament was not to remain in Rennes. Following the uprisings in 1675 caused by protests over high taxation imposed by Louis XIV, the parliament was moved to Vannes and there it stayed for fourteen years.
The parliament returned to Rennes, becoming the administrative centre of Brittany for the next two hundred years… until the great fire.

On 23rd December 1720, the centre of Rennes was ravaged by fire, which raged for six days and terrible nights. The fire devastated a good portion of the city, destroying nearly one thousand buildings in total and only stopped when it reached the firebreak made by the canal.
Present day Rennes is laid out using the same plans used for the re-construction after the great fire.
Although many of the timber framed building are built in the style of the Middle Ages, only a few, such as those in the Champs Jacquet remain. The others date from after 1720 and the reconstruction.

The French Revolution, (1789–1799) did not leave Brittany and in particular Rennes untouched. Although it did not see the same horrors as were experienced in Nantes, where thousands were put to death, a royalist uprising supported by the British was destroyed by General Hoche near Rennes.

The Second World War

During the Second World War, Rennes escaped the high intensity bombing and the Blitzkrieg experienced by others, leaving the city intact to act as the Germans operational centre for the occupation of Brittany. Although not destroyed Rennes did not go unscathed as the records of Bomber Command show,

On the night of the seventh May 1944
55 Lancaster’s of No 1 Group bombed the airfield and an ammunition dump at Rennes. The force was not able to locate and mark the target adequately and most of the bombs fell on a nearby village. No aircraft lost.

Eleventh and twelfth May 1944
105 Lancaster’s and 5 Mosquito’s of No’s 3 and 8 Groups attacked the railway yards at Louvain near Rennes but the main weight of the bombing hit the railway workshops and nearby storage buildings. 4 Lancasters lost.

Twenty seventh/twenty eighth May 1944
78 Lancasters and 5 Mosquito’s of No 8 Group attacked the airfield at Rennes in good visibility. The marking was good and the bombing was very accurate. Much damage to the airfield installations was caused and there was a large explosion, probably in the bomb dump.

As with many Breton towns such as Brest, the damage caused during the war was primarily but unavoidably caused by the allies in their build up to the Invasion of Europe on June 6th 1945. Bridges, major roads and railway lines and stations were all targeted as well as centres of communication and administration such as Rennes.
The American Third Army finally liberated Rennes in August 1944.

Rennes today


In March 2002 at the cost of €500 million, Rennes became the smallest town in the world to have its own designated Metro service…well the second smallest.
The Rennes Metro running northwest to southeast is 9.4 km long and has fifteen stations along its route. There is only one line with two tracks one in each direction, and is based on Siemens Transportation Systems of light automatic vehicle.
Running from J.F. Kennedy in the north to La Poterie in the south, via the city's SNCF station, thirteen of the stations are underground and have been constructed with very little damage to the aesthetic appearance of the older sections of the town.
The station, ‘La Poterie,’ as well as all the overland sections and their supports were designed by the British architect Norman Foster.
Services run every day of the week with trains every 3 and 7 minutes. The journey from one end of the system to the other takes 16 minutes, the trains averaging 32 Km/h.
The smallest metro in the world is hosted in the small Austrian mountain village of Serfausin Austria.



Le Parliament de Bretagne

On the night of the 4th February 1994 a tragedy befell the city of Rennes, Brittany and the Breton people. The regional parliament, the home of the Breton independent dream was destroyed by fire.
During a demonstration in the square outside the parliament, a marine flare was ignited. The flare became lodges in the roof space and set light to the ancient timbers. An ill wind fanned the flames and the fire soon spread to the whole building engulfing it in flame. Many firemen were injured tackling the blaze. Today the parliament has been fully restored.

Every Saturday morning, until 13h30, there is a large food market in the centre of Rennes where a vast array of fruit, vegetables, fish and other French delicacies can be bought. Rennes has a large shopping centre at Place de Colombier with the Metro stopping nearby. Being a University town there are numerous bars, cafes and restaurants particularly north of the river where the town has a patchwork of eighteenth century squares, large administrational buildings interspersed with quaint, intimate and alluring alleys of half timbered houses.

Rennes is a pleasant city, worth visiting for a stroll to admire the fascinating melange of different architectural designs ancient and new. Although it does not have a particularly strong or cohesive personality, Rennes is a great place for lunch in one of the many colourful squares numerous street cafes and restaurants. Followed by a stroll and some retail therapy a perfect springtime appointment, once the long monochrome of winter has passed.




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