I have again picked a hotel close to the station and the good news is that this is more like it, a proper hotel. The bad news is that I have to wait four hours to check-in which, whilst not unexpected, is not ideal.
I decide to head into the town centre for breakfast then a look around. I am asking the chap on reception for directions and recommendations and doing really well conversing in French, if you can ignore my annoying habit of saying ‘Si’ every time he asks me a question. Five weeks in Italy over the summer followed by a meal with the Verona branch of the Italian Celts last week and I have become some sort of mad Scottish-Italian-Spanish Del Bhoy who is lost in France.
I apologise about a million times then head out. Along the banks of the main canal I find the perfect spot for breakfast. It’s quiet and they’re advertising croissants, orange juice and coffee for 8 Euro. The guy at the bar is friendly and seems to appreciate my attempts at speaking his language. I’m a tea rather than coffee man so I carefully make my requests, hot tea, cold milk, sugar etc. I sit down feeling quite chuffed with myself and my efforts to blend seamlessly into the French way of life. That lasts as long as it takes for mine host to bring over a jug of frothy, boiling-hot milk! ‘Mange tout! Back to the drawing board, Rodney’.
Appetite satisfied and taste buds burnt, I decide to head out to the stadium. It’s a beautiful day and I am advised it will take about twenty minutes, although after HotMilkGate that could well be wrong. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes in I can see a sign directing me off the main road through a quiet residential street and park to the stadium. I arrive at the visitors end, which I’m thinking is handy to know ahead of the walk later. I don’t want a repeat of Leipzig, where we all turn up at the same time and the turnstiles are manic, and after killing time all day we miss the kick-off.
It looks a cracking stadium. A proper venue. Steep stands and all. Not unlike Salzburg from memory. I take a few photos as I walk around, catching an occasional glimpse of the inside through open gates. At the far end of the ground, the home end presumably, a Roazhon Park sign is proudly emblazoned on the stadium wall. I had learned that Rennes is the capital of Brittany and Roazhon is the Breton name for Rennes. I had noticed earlier that the street signs were written in both French and Breton, an ancient south-western Celtic language, closer to Cornish than French apparently. As fellow Celts, hopefully we will have much in common with our hosts.
Whilst taking photographs of the stadium, I am suddenly aware of the longest row of Citroen 2CV6 cars I have ever seen. As I was learning to drive, forty years ago, I thought this car was the coolest on the planet. It would appear I was not alone, as a few car enthusiasts are buzzing around these taking their own photos, manipulating the vehicles into a perfect line in a way which makes the OCD in me burst with pride. I resist the urge to help my fellow Celtic maniacs and move on. A quick pop into the club shop to maintain a tradition dad started decades ago and then it’s time to head back into town.
Approaching the centre of town, I hear Scottish accents as I pass a couple of guys not wearing any colours. Turns out they are the drivers for a CSC from Pollok, I catch the ‘7-1’ but not the full name. The troops have been dropped off in the main square and the drivers are stretching their legs and enjoying the sun. For years, the Cairn CSC ran such trips. The thought of 24 hours on a bus to travel to a game feels a bit daunting now but some of the best laughs of my teens and twenties came on those travels across the continent following the team. Rotterdam. Ghent. Dortmund. Ekeren. Berne. And of course, we’ll always have Paris.
Rennes is a nice place with a real historic feel to its old centre. The cathedral façade looks uncannily like Paris’ Notre Dame, one of my favourite buildings on the planet. I am not hugely religious. Now that the kids are adults, I tend to find solace in it when I am losing or have just lost the people I love but otherwise it doesn’t feature prominently in my life. I have to say though, that I was really moved when I saw the clip of the Parisian youngsters singing Ave Maria as the beautiful old building burned in the background in April of this year. I will be in Paris tomorrow so will try to get up for a look at it.
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