Picture of the Week: Lonely Dog

After St Malo, Rennes, the offi­cial cap­i­tal of Brit­tany. Rennes has always com­peted with Nantes: both city have good uni­ver­si­ties, both are lively and rel­a­tively cheap and both are buzzing cities. But Rennes has a stronger “Bre­tagne” (Brit­tany) feel­ing, proud and alive.

A quasi-independent king­dom dur­ing the Mid­dle Ages, the old province was even­tu­ally split between two regions of France: Bre­tagne (cap­i­tal: Rennes) and Pays-De-La-Loire (cap­i­tal: Nantes), mostly to avoid the rivalry between Nantes and Rennes. Brit­tany lost its juridi­cal exis­tence and auton­omy right after the French rev­o­lu­tion and the cul­tural area was weaken. Bre­ton lan­guage, for exam­ple, declined pre­cip­i­tously after WW2 and kids were forced to learn French as school, which is still resented today in Brittany.

Since the 1970’s, var­i­ous region­al­ist and sep­a­ratist move­ment have debated about the “Bre­ton iden­tity” and its revival… hence bilin­gual signs in Rennes and even a local “Breizh Cola” (“Breizh” being “Brit­tany” in Breton).

Bilin­gual Street Signs

Local Breizh Cola

Rennes is a beau­ti­ful city by day, with its small cob­ble­stone streets and small shops. But the city truly comes alive at night.

Down­town Rennes

White Build­ing

At night, mon­u­ments are lit, cof­fee shops are bars install chairs and tables every­where in the small streets and peo­ple go out. A lot.

Just After Dark

Cen­tral Plaza

The street pic­tured below is “Rue St Michel”, nick­named “Rue De La Soif”, or “The Street Of Thirst”, because it only has one kind of shop: bars! We went there on a Fri­day night… an inter­est­ing expe­ri­ence, indeed. First of all, since Canada and the USA both enforce a legal drink­ing age, I’m not used to see teens in bars any­more. But it’s fairly nor­mal in France, as I explained in Cig­a­rettes & Alco­hol a few months ago. The legal drink­ing age is between 14 and 16 years old and no one is likely to check ID’s…

Because of the recent smok­ing ban in pub­lic places in France (and yes, peo­ple actu­ally respect it — beat me!), peo­ple con­gre­gate in front of bars and restau­rants. Peo­ple gather in the mid­dle of streets, a cig­a­rette in one hand and a glass of beer in the other and chat. We sat in an almost empty bar (empty because the cus­tomers were all smok­ing out­side) and had a drink. We noticed groups of teens com­ing in, order­ing “mètres” (un mètre being shots of alco­hol lined up on a meter… form­ing lit­er­ally one meter of drinks), drink­ing quick and then hop­ing to another bar a few min­utes later. Binge drink­ing to its best. It did get quite rowdy and aggres­sive later at night (gee, I won­der why) and we left for another qui­eter place.

At 5am, the city was still alive. We were back at the hotel and try­ing to sleep (man, I feel old!) and from the win­dow, I could see peo­ple walk­ing around with bot­tles of alco­hol, drunk teens and stu­dents smok­ing pot. Man, I feel even older. I know drink­ing was an art in Brit­tany. I didn’t know it was that bad though!

Cute Build­ings

Rue de la Soif

Related posts:

1. A Rainy Day
2. St Malo — A Walled City
3. Best Of Paris (2÷2)
4. The Walls Are Talking
5. Brazil­ian Car­naval In Paraty (2)