Nantes will always be known as the capital of Brittany, although now it is in another area.
The Dukes of Brittany ruled their lands from here until the Duchy was united with France in the 16th century and their former seat of power is still one of Nantes' most commanding buildings. The Loire is the lifeblood of the Nantes and has brought the world to the threshold of the city, allowing commerce and industry to flourish. Take the city’s Navibus shuttles to ride the marvelous machines on the Île de Nantes or lounge by the riverside in the bohemian village of Trentemoult on the left bank. Let's explore the best things to do in Nantes.
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1. Château des Ducs de Bretagne
The old seat of the Duke of Brittany is the last castle on the Loire before it empties into the Atlantic. The fortified palace is in the eastern part of the old town, although it’s hard to miss the hefty walls and towers that encircle the refined Grand Logis where the dukes lived.
The castle was built in the 13th century and occupied by the Duke for 300 years until it became the residence of the French royal family in the 1500s.
The courtyard and ramparts are free to enter, but you pay to visit the Nantes History, which reveals the different stages in the city’s evolution, from the slave trade to its time as an industrial port.
The deep green space of the deep moat, Douves du Château, is a spectacular location for a summer afternoon.
2. Les Machines de l’Île
The west side of the Île de Nantes is inhabited by whimsical animatronic creatures inspired by Jules Verne’s writings and Leonardo da Vinci’s fanciful gizmos and brought to life by the artist François Delaroziere.
All these extraordinary machines are interactive: The Grand Éléphant, for example, is 12 meters tall and carries 52 passengers on its back for a walk in which you can feel the vibration of every step.
Carrousel des Mondes Marins is a huge conveyor belt with moving sea creatures, and Aroust aux Hérons is a climbing sculpture with ramps and stairs in the form of a large tree. The indoor Galerie des Machines have many more sculptures and show you how they were designed and built.
3. Passage Pommeraye
Between Rue de la Fosse and Rue Santeuil, this shopping area since 1843 is not a complicated place to shop but an ingenious architecture and a sight to see. The passage was built on a steep slope, and it adapted to the nine-meter height difference with a clever intermediate floor between the two street levels.
4. Jardin des Plantes
Classified as one of France’s “remarkable gardens”, the Jardin des Plantes packs 10,000 species into its seven hectares. The gardens are right in the middle of the city, just ten minutes on foot from the Château des Ducs de Bretagne.
It has no normal park: the Palm House here is an excellent metal and glass structure in the late 19th century with plants from tropical America, while the three greenhouses on the sides have orchids from Africa and Asia.
As you walk the streets, you will see mature trees like a 220-year-old magnolia tree and two great trees planted 150 years ago.
5. Île Feydeau
When you’re exploring Île Feydeau you may wonder why this district just south of the center is called an island, or why streets have names like Quai Turenne when there’s no sign of water. Well, it was an island up to the 1930s when one of the arms of the Loire was blocked off.
Before the 18th-century Feydeau had been uninhabitable marshland when a land reclamation project created a dignified quarter for the city’s wealthy merchants to live. Their flat-fronted homes are beautiful, with iron balconies, mansard roofs, and carved stone grotesques.
The ground below is still soft, causing some of these townhouses to lie on their side.
6. Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle
Nantes’ Natural History Museum has a fine setting in the city’s old mint and has galleries for every branch of natural science: There are zoological, paleontological, mineralogical, ethnographical and a host of other collections from fields with long names, assembled since the 1700s.
The specimen guaranteed to turn heads is the fin whale skeleton in the zoology gallery, more than 18 meters in length and suspended from the ceiling. The Vivarium, which was added in 1955, and was refurbished recently, has a set of terrariums with snakes and other exotic reptiles.
7. Nantes Cathedral
Begun in 1434, it took more than 400 years to build the city’s cathedral. Construction continued in the 1600s in brilliant gothic design although it was outdated for a long time because it suited the previous work.
Another intriguing tidbit is that Nicolas Fouquet, the high-living Superintendent of Finances in Louis XIV’s court, was arrested in front of the cathedral by d’Artagnan in 1661. He remained a prisoner for the last 20 years of his life.
You must make time for the Tomb of Francis II, Duke of Brittany, organized as a French Renaissance masterpiece. It dates back to 1507 and contains obsessed sculptures from Carrara white marble.
8. Cours Cambronne
Part of a new city district built in the 18th century, Cours Cambronne is a magnificent square between two 180 meter-long terraces of neoclassical mansions.
Step along the regal central avenue to see the statue of Pierre Cambronne, a military general born in Nantes and injured in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Sixteen of the splendid castles on the square are listed in the repository of historical French monuments.
One of the things worth mentioning, in particular, is the Hôtel Scheult, towards the peak of the Rue Piron whose new facade has been restored.
9. Mémorial de l’Abolition de l’Esclavage
It helps to remember that much of Nantes’ Ancien Régime splendor was financed by the slave trade. Nantes was the first city in France to ship slaves on an industrial scale and during the 18th century, the largest proportion of France’s slave ships departed from this port.
So the memorial commemorating the abolition of slavery next to the Loire on Quai de la Fosse is extra poignant. Since the end of the 20th century, the city has started confronting this chapter in its past, and in 2012 it unveiled a somber and austere memorial.
In an underground corridor, you’ll read about the many expeditions made from Nantes, and even the names of the ships involved.
10. Musée de l’Imprimerie
Nantes has had a long relationship with the print newspaper since the first title, Les Lunettes des Princes of the poet Breton Jean Meschinot, in 1493. This museum was founded in 1986 by master prints Sylvain. Chiffoleau and composer Robert Colombiaeau and have built an incredible collection of manual and mechanical printers.
There are also intaglio plates, lithography plates, dyes, and historic typesetting molds. And if all that sounds baffling to you then you can take the tour to get the inside track on the printing industry in Nantes and see how all this arcane equipment was used.
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