From Medieval Gates to Art Deco Waves: A Walking Tour of Rennes

Brittany’s capital, Rennes, has been shaped by an unwavering refusal to be defined by its past.

On this walking tour, you’ll discover how this city transformed itself from a medieval timber town into a pioneer of modernism and an Art Deco showcase, all while maintaining its fiercely independent Breton identity.

The tour starts at the Couvent des Jacobins, a Dominican monastery from the 1300s that’s now a state-of-the-art convention center. You’ll wander through the narrow streets of the medieval quarter, past timber-framed houses that survived the catastrophic Great Fire of 1720. Along the way, you’ll walk through the monumental Portes Mordelaises, the royal gates where every Duke and Duchess of Brittany once swore an oath before entering the city to be crowned.

You’ll walk through the elegant Place de la Mairie, where the City Hall and Opera House were designed as architectural mirrors – one concave, one convex – that locked together like jigsaw pieces. You’ll discover the spectacular Saint-Georges swimming pool, adorned with Art Deco mosaics by the Odorico family, Italian immigrants who transformed Rennes in the 1920s. The tour ends at Place Hoche, a grand academic square anchored by the neo-Gothic Hôtel Galicier, which blends medieval fantasy with industrial-age concrete.

On this 60-minute tour, you’ll have a chance to:

• Admire Ti Koz, a crimson timber-framed house from 1505 that survived two fires to become an icon of medieval Rennes
• Visit the Parlement de Bretagne, which went up in flames during a 1994 protest and was meticulously restored by the city
• Explore Les Portes Mordelaises’ medieval machicolations, designed to drop stones on anyone trying to force entry
• Peek through the gateway of the Ancienne Manécanterie Saint-Pierre, a secret garden sanctuary for cathedral choirboys since 1476
• Walk through Place des Lices, site of medieval jousting tournaments and now home to France’s second-largest Saturday market
• See La Barre Saint-Just, a 1960s “vertical village” built on the city’s highest ridge with streets in the sky

This tour reveals how Rennes turned disaster into innovation, creating a city where medieval gates and Art Deco waves exist in constant, beautiful dialogue.