Rennes is the capital of Brittany, a handsome, youthful city of two hundred thousand people on the river Vilaine, with a large student population and a lively street life. The old quarter has a surprising number of half-timbered houses from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, leaning at crazy angles, which survived a great fire in 1720 that destroyed much of the rest of the town. After that disaster, the centre was rebuilt in an orderly grid of stone, and the contrast between the two styles is part of the city's charm.
The Parlement de Bretagne, built in the seventeenth century, is the main landmark, and its richly decorated chambers were badly damaged by a fire in 1994 during a protest, then restored. On Saturday mornings, the Place des Lices fills with one of the largest and most famous markets in France, with stalls of oysters, cheese, vegetables, flowers and buckwheat crêpes. Eat a galette-saucisse, a sausage wrapped in a buckwheat pancake, the local street food, and order a bolée of Breton cider.
For riders, Rennes is a convenient base for Brittany and Normandy, with the road to Mont-Saint-Michel running north through farmland, apple orchards and small towns. The ring road is busy and the centre has trams and one-way streets, but it is easy to leave, and fuel stations are plentiful. The Mont, about seventy kilometres north, appears from a long way off, a spire in a vast, flat bay, and the tides there are among the highest in Europe, moving faster than a person can walk. Check the tide times before you go, and be careful in wet weather, because rain is common in this part of France.
Come in late spring or early autumn, when the weather is mild and the roads are quiet. The light on the stone in the evening is soft, and the cafés around the Place Sainte-Anne are lively until late. Stay for dinner if you can. Brittany does simple food very well, and the cider is excellent.