France – Nantes (En)

Nantes, a city on the Loire River in the Upper Brittany region of western France, has a long history as a port and industrial centre. It’s home to the restored, medieval Château des Ducs de Bretagne, where the Dukes of Brittany once lived. The castle is now a local history museum with multimedia exhibits, as well as a walkway atop its fortified ramparts. It is the city where the writer Jules Verne was born.

Where to stay

We stayed in the Camping-Car area (47.243301, -1.55676 lat, long) which is next to the campsite (very expensive and was full), so we used the card that we had to buy in Caen. The area is large with shaded plots, surrounded by trees and grass, a very good area for loading and unloading water but without electricity. We paid 14.50 euros per day. Very well located to visit the city, since you have the tram 100 meters away and it runs every 5 minutes, about 6 stops to the centre.

What to see

We took the tram and got off in the centre of Nantes and discovered that Nantes is full of unconventional cafes and shops and its squares are full of young people. With a lot of art galleries and street art on every corner. There are two large squares, Square Graslin where the theater is located and Square Bouffay with lots of terraces and statues.

Walking through the streets you come across the Church of St. Croix, a historic and ornate church with a bell tower, 17th-century altar and Gothic stained glass windows, which we were able to visit inside.

Also in the centre, you find the Basilica of St. Nicholas in neo-Gothic style that was built between the 11th and 12th centuries. It was restored in 1478 and remained without maintenance until the beginning of the 19th century. The first time you see it is quite impressive, and we were also able to see it inside, Ben really liked it because it has beautiful stained glass windows, one in the shape of a rose window.

Then we decided to go to lunch, while we walked we looked at the menus and dishes of the day and decided to return to a restaurant that we had seen with different dishes of the day that were quite cheap. I ordered the dish that the waitress who spoke Spanish very well recommended, meat with cheese bechamel, caramelized onion sauce and pasta, and Ben ordered the fish which was hake with an orange sauce, mashed sweet potato and green beans, the two plates with salad. All for 20 euros!

After lunch we went to see the Castle of the Dukes of Brittany which was built at the end of the 15th century by Francis II, last Duke of Brittany, and later by his daughter, Anne of Brittany, twice Queen of France. It is a palatial residence with sophisticated facades and loggias from the Renaissance era. From the outside, it is quite impressive with a fortress surrounded by a moat where a beautiful park now extends. You enter through a drawbridge and find yourself in a large courtyard with several mansions one is the History Museum.

You can tour the walls and the moat, which we did where you have panoramic views of the city, the moat and park and the LU cookie factory, which is the creator of Prince chocolate cookies, with a crowned tower for a box of cookies. Currently, its facilities contain everything from a nightclub to a spa, restaurants and even a daycare.

Then we went to see the Gothic Cathedral of Nantes, which began to be built in the mid-16th century and was not completed until the end of the 19th century. It was closed so we couldn’t see it inside, but inside is the tomb of Francis II of Brittany. The cathedral is located in the Royal Square where there is a Ferris wheel and a huge statue that we couldn’t see who it was. And we finished our tour walking along the Loire where we took the tram back to the campsite.

We recommend seeing Nantes, a city full of life and quite peculiar. The next day we went to La Rochelle, but there was a festival and it was impossible to stay anywhere, so we continued on and came to Pons, a city known for its numerous national historical monuments dating from the 12th century onwards, and which you can see in the next post!