Few towns in France preserve their medieval outline as clearly as Vannes. Set at the head of the Gulf of Morbihan in southern Brittany, it retains an almost complete circuit of ramparts, gates and towers, with formal gardens laid out beneath the walls and the old washhouses still lining the stream that runs along them. Inside, a dense grid of narrow streets is built up with timber-framed houses whose upper floors lean over the pavement, converging on Saint Peter's cathedral and the covered market square. Vannes was one of the seats of the dukes of Brittany, and the decisions taken here belong to the long story of how an independent duchy came to be joined to the kingdom of France. The film moves between three scales: the aerial view that reveals the walled town within the modern city, the street-level detail of carved beams, slate and granite, and the working port that still connects Vannes to the gulf and its islands.
