Rennes

The nearest big city to Thourie (as far as I know!) is Rennes.  I liked it.  The place was clean, the populace was friendly (really -- as part of an exercise, I had to stop multiple people and ask directions to a well-known building or structure.  Every one of them was willing to do it.  Once, when I tried and failed to interest two people who were wearing headphones, a woman came up to me and said Sir, are you having some problems?)  and the whole place just felt approachable.  Now, maybe that's because it was the bustling downtown, and maybe the rest is awful -- but I'd go back.

Most of these are photos that we had to take to prove that we actually had found the places we were tasked to find. One of them, not so much.

Even the city logo has a clean look.

Yeah, that caught my eye.  My teacher was not amused.

Champs Libres appeared to be a kind of shopping mall, but very small.

This is the office of the mayor.  Rennes was having an exhibit of photographs taken in the area during World War Two, and unlike here, people seemed actively interested in looking at and discussing the images.

Another example of something that's actually fascinating -- they were excavating and restoring a structure that apparently was originally built in the middle ages.

It didn't even occur to me to take a photo until they were breaking it down, but this was a bike training rink where a bunch of young kids rolled under the guidance of local cops.  One person told me that on weekends, its a bustling open market.