We’d been to Nantes before but only as an overnight stop between trains, never venturing much further than to a hotel right outside of the station. Now we were going to spend a week there, with plenty of time to explore this historic city and discover some of its Breton heritage, from the Château des Ducs de Bretagne to the numerous museums and the beautiful Jardin des Plantes. Given that our vacation apartment was a 5-minute walk from that château, that would have been a logical starting point for our first day but we had loftier plans in mind.  That is, the Great Elephant (featured photo above) at the Machines de l’île, standing 12 meters (39 feet) high, 8 meters (26 feet) wide and 21 meters (69 feet) long!

The Loire River runs through Nantes and that’s where we walked to see the Machines de l’île, a giant attraction on an island that brings to life fantastical creatures inspired by famous French residents including Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci. La Galerie des Machines is where theater company La Machine tries out their giant, moving creations like a spider, a heron with an 8-meter wingspan, hummingbirds, and an ant, all huge and creepy. The Carrousel des Mondes Marins, 25 meters (82 feet) high, transports you to a whimsical world where mechanical sea creatures come to life. And we weren’t finished yet; in the Workshop Terraces you get to see the artists building their unusual metal and wooden creatures and of course there was the Grand Éléphant. I’d say that on this island the operative word is indeed, grand!

From one big place to another, it was time to visit the Château des Ducs de Bretagne. This 15th-century castle was the last fortress constructed by the Dukes of Brittany who had been ruling the area since at least 939 AD. Access to the castle courtyard, rampart walk, and moat gardens is always free and since we were there on the first Sunday of the month, so was the Nantes city museum inside.

Only 5 minutes from there we were walking through the 7 hectare (18 acre) botanical garden, the Jardin des Plantes, created in 1688 for medicinal plants and redesigned in the 1800s as an English landscape garden. There were greenhouses, ponds and water features, sculptures, 200-year-old trees and since this was a springtime visit, we saw a great variety of the 50,000 flowers that they plant each season.

At about the same time that the Jardin was changing to an English garden, Louis Pommeraye was building his beautiful and now-historic shopping arcade in 1843 that still bears his name. It’s a three-level design, connected by an impressive central staircase giving you access to upscale shops, boutiques, and cafes. We don’t buy many souvenirs but food doesn’t count so it was here that we went in search of the city’s specialty, Gâteau Nantais. Nantes was a major port city in France, with significant trade connections to the Caribbean islands that provided two vital ingredients for this treat, sugar and rum, yum!

Without realizing it, after we had visited the sites above, we had passed through three different neighborhoods that reflected the history of Nantes, each with a major square showcasing its distinct era from the 13th to the 19th century. There was the château in the medieval quarter of Bouffay with its half-timbered houses, the 18th century Cours Cambronne’s neoclassical mansions, and the elegant arcade of Quartier Graslin. 

Thanks to convenient train connections with Nantes as home base, we were able to take several day trips into the Pays de la Loire. Those excursions next time.

Photo note: In the first paragraph is “Le Liseur aux Canaris” (The Canary Reader), a life-size sculpture by the artist Stéphane Phelippot, on the balcony of the bookstore Librairie Coiffard.