Nantes and Rennes

I'm about half way through my year abroad now, and just getting started with classes again (no process is ever logical or admin-free in France). But before term started I took a little trip away with Rhianna and Eilish. We started in Nantes and then moved onto Rennes and back to Tours from there. It was so relaxing and a great opportunity as the trains weren't too expensive with our railcards and also because of the time of year both cities were pretty quiet and inexpensive.

We arrived in Nantes in good time and worked out a route that took us past the Castle and Cathedral, through the main squares, and to the river. The Cathedral was quite modern looking and weirdly clean as it was badly damaged in a fire in the 1970s and had to be restored. In many ways it was quite similar to Tours Cathedral, but in my (unbiased) opinion Tours is more impressive. By the river we went to see one of Nantes most distinctive features, a giant wooden elephant, which was unfortunately down for maintenance and missing it's trunk and ears. In season you can ride in the elephant and it sprays water on it's way! The same company had also made an enormous mechanical tree and a sea-themed merry-go-round (I'm not entirely sure what they officially do!). In a completely different tone there is also a slavery memorial by the river, which includes plaques for every ship that passed through Nantes. We also had a look round the shops and cut through Passage Pommeraye which is an old shopping mall, built in the 1840s.

Place Marechal Foch (glorious weather)

Château des Ducs de Bretagne

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul

The enormous mechanical elephant (under maintenance)

Passage Pommeraye

Place Royale

The Loire

Memorial of the Abolition of Slavery

Théâtre Graslin

Basilique Saint-Nicolas

Église Sainte-Croix

Église Sainte-Croix

After dinner we watched trashy French TV in the hotel since we were leaving for Rennes pretty early the next morning.
Rennes was amazing, the town was beautiful and and it had a really nice atmosphere to it. Apparently it has a large student population and I can definitely see the appeal. I have to say I was a little jealous of people that get to study there, I'd love to live in Brittany. Apart from a couple of hours of torrential rain we were quite lucky with the weather, and we were able to see a lot. The Cathedral was enormous and on the inside it was quite different to the others we've seen, there was a lot more (dark) colour, and decoration. We also walked through Historic Rennes, went to see the Parlement and the Mairie, did some shopping in the sales, and visited église Saint-Aubin. In the evening we went out for obligatory crêpes, since we were in the land of crêpes, and then had some wine and watched the French version of The Voice. When we headed back into Rennes in the morning we came across the beginnings of a vintage car display/gathering completely by chance which was a nice unexpected addition.
Overall it was a great way to start my second semester here. I hope that we can make the most of our remaining time here and take the opportunity to explore France and the Loire Valley as much as possible :)

Sign for a Breton school

Place Sainte-Anne

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Rennes

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Rennes

Eglise Saint-Aubin

Falling down buildings in Rennes

Historic Rennes

Me and Eilish in front of the Mairie

Place des lices

Vintage car exhibition

Original Ouest-France building (French daily newspaper)

Parlement de Bretagne

Place du Champ-Jacquet

La Vilaine

Shopping

Shopping

Opéra de Rennes (Place de la Mairie)

Drinking wine at the crêperie

(Sorry this took so long, the internet in halls has been shocking recently. All pictures taken by Rhianna)

Term two begins + Paris

The Christmas holidays flew by as expected. I settled back in quite easily, the weirdest thing was hearing English all around me, and speaking to cashiers and train conductors etc. in English. Most of the break was spent catching up with friends and family, highlights being: our grandparents coming for Christmas, going back to Egham, New Year with family friends, and seeing the RSC production of Richard II starring David Tennant (which was amazing).

During winter there are very few London-Tours flights so I had to get the eurostar home and back which is a bit of a hassle. But since I was already paying the travel costs between Tours and Paris I decided to stay a night at the hostel from our last trip on my way back here. The day I travelled I didn't see much as I spent most of it freaking out over forgetting my French PIN and queuing up to cancel/exchange the train ticket I'd booked with that card (I suppose it's all experience!), but the next day was great. I got up fairly early and left my bags in the hostel lockers and then headed to the Musée D'Orsay, where the queues were much shorter than last time. I'm so glad I went there, the collections were incredible and because of the time of year it wasn't too busy so you could get a good look at everything you wanted to see, even the famous Van Goghs and Monets. I also loved the Art Nouveau furniture collection which was on two floors, one for Central Europe, Northern Europe, and Scandinavia and one for Austria, Great Britian, and the United States.

Once I'd finished at the Musée D'Orsay I took a not very direct route to Musée du Quai Branley so I could walk through some of the centre and have lunch in the park by the Eiffel Tower. Musée du Quai Branley is a relatively new museum of non-western art, set in an enormous modern building. It was really interesting, particularly having come directly from the Musée d'Orsay where the art was very different. There was also a temporary exhibition called 'Nocturnes de Colombie: images contemporaines' which was powerful although a little creepy as there didn't seem to be anyone else on the entire floor for most of the time that I was looking round.

In the evening I went straight to drinks with some Erasmus friends which was a nice way to return although it was an exhausting day!

Van Gogh- Portrait de l'artiste

Van Gogh- La nuit étoilée

Monet- Londres, le Parlement; Trouée de soleil dans le brouillard

Monet- Coquelicots

Monet- Gare Saint-Lazare

Edouard Manet- L'évasion de Rochefort

Gustave Guillaumet- Le désert

I couldn't find any good pictures for the Art Nouveau displays but if you're interested here are links to the website, which has a couple of slideshows of them:  

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/pavillon-amont/level-4.html 

http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/pavillon-amont/level-3.html