We stopped in Rennes by accident. That is, we meant to go there, but only because we had a hotel reservation that we made because we thought Rennes is the home of a collection of amazing mechanical animals. It turns out the animals are in Nantes not Rennes, so we had to make the best of it. To make the situation even more colorful, our hotel was half a block from the train station, so we had lots of homeless folks wandering around... it made it feel almost like Santa Monica! (But with galettes instead of burritos.)
So what did we do in Rennes? While Anca was washing some dried soft-drink out of her only pair of jeans, Anna & I went to explore the garden of Thabor, which is a huge, well-kept public park that reminded me of English parks. I was enjoying the shady trees, bridges, and moss-covered stone walls, but the highlight for Anna was the aviary with parakeets, cockatiels, pheasants, and partridges.
When we met up with Anca again and tried to go for lunch, we found out that all the restaurants shut down at 2 PM sharp. So at 2:05 we walked around to half a dozen crêperies until we found one that had a little leftover broccoli quiche they were willing to serve us. Just a minute after sitting down, a 70-something-year-old woman “Anna” came over and with an educated English accent remarked how nice it is to hear someone else speaking English. We invited her to sit with us so we got to hear all about how she’s travelled all over the world but after living in Brittany for 20 years her English vocabulary is slipped a little.
Next stop? Guérande!