Rue Neuve

You’re now on Rue Neuve. As you might have guessed, it really was “new” once… back in the 16th century!

The street is only 2.4 meters, or about 7 feet 10 inches, wide, narrowing to just 1.9 meters, or around 6 feet 3 inches, between the stones set at the base of the walls. These are wheel guards, designed to stop cart wheels and protruding parts from scraping against the buildings. With a passage this narrow, drivers had to be pretty skilled…

and it probably didn’t hurt to suck in your stomach either! Despite its modest size, this street was once one of the main routes toward Vannes. It’s hard to imagine that so much of the traffic through southern Brittany once passed right through here.

Some carts were so wide that they scraped along the walls, leaving marks that can still be seen today. Eventually, traffic became so difficult that in 1749, several houses near the bridge were demolished to create a more practical route: Quai-Neuf. So long before modern traffic jams, Saint-Goustan already had congestion problems of its own.