Capital of the Moribihan department of the Bretagne region, we made a visit to the ancient harbour and Old Town quarter of Vannes, whose ducal seat goes back to the Gallo-Roman settlement of Darioritum (then named for the seafaring Veneti people whose land was occupied, the Breton version derived from the same) and was considered the chief city and parliamentary centre of independent Brittany from the fifth century, with the first king Nominoรซ reigning in the early 1000s until the time of the French Revolution.
The entire medieval townscape was quite a sight to take in and we had quite a few impressions of the well-preserved, walled core and ensemble of historic buildings.
The heraldic charge of the city is the ermine, also reflected in the flag of Brittany, which we really like as the dog’s coat is similarly scored with a white spot on her chest with the same noble marking.
Another famous emblem of the patrimony of the city is a polychrome architectural element, Vannes et sa Femme, a stone bust of the couple dating from the sixteenth century incorporated into a half-timbered building’s faรงade (maison ร colombage, presently a pizzeria) and the jovial pair possibly originally advertised a cabaret. This pixelated image affixed to a wall just outside Place Henry-IV is perhaps an homage to Missus Vannes.
