Rennes

The monumental 17th-century square at the heart of Rennes, dominated by the Parlement de Bretagne with its golden-sandstone Renaissance facade. Fully pedestrian and dog-friendly, café terraces face the floodlit Parlement at night.

10-hectare central park laid out by Denis and Eugène Bühler in the 19th century, with a formal French garden, English landscape garden and rose garden of 2,000 varieties. Leashed dogs welcome on paths and signposted lawns.

Neoclassical Roman Catholic cathedral built between 1787 and 1844 in the medieval quarter spared by the 1720 fire. Leashed dogs are welcome on the parvis and the surrounding cobbled lanes, but not inside.

France's second-largest open-air market (after Lyon), held on Place des Lices every Saturday morning with about 300 stalls of Breton produce. Leashed dogs welcome in the covered hall and across the square.

The Vilaine towpath crosses Rennes east to west and joins the Canal d'Ille-et-Rance for an 84 km continuous flat walk toward Saint-Malo. Ideal for senior dogs and off-leash running away from the centre.

Around 280 half-timbered houses from the 15th-17th centuries that survived the 1720 fire, concentrated around Rue du Chapitre, Rue Saint-Sauveur and Place Sainte-Anne. Pedestrian lanes, dog-friendly, among the most photogenic in France.