For a city that has been the capital and power centre of Brittany since the 1532 union with France, Rennes is - outwardly at least - uncharacteristic of the province, with its Neoclassical layout and pompous major buildings. What potential it had to be a picturesque tourist spot was destroyed in 1720, when a drunken carpenter managed to set light to virtually the whole city. Only the area known as Les Lices , at the junction of the canalized Ille and the River Vilaine, was unda... [More]