Nantes is a revelation. With art to breathe in at every turn, the city is an open-air museum. Appealing, modern and captivating: 5 things to see in this green jewel on the banks of the Loire.
Nantes is a revelation, often not only for foreign tourists but for the French themselves: from a city devoted to maritime trade – thanks to its shipyards and the labyrinth of canals leading to the sea – it has managed to transform itself into a place where art can be breathed in and admired at every turn. La belle endormie (the sleeping beauty), as some used to call it, has woken up by making the most of what it already had, enhancing its own territorial and urban distinctiveness. A small jewel that for some years now has established itself as an appealing, modern and captivating destination in an absolutely unique and unconventional way. A journey worth making.
When you arrive in Nantes, you will often hear talk of La ligne verte: this is not a metro line or a tram but a permanent route, known as Voyage à Nantes, comprising around fifty stops enriched each year by a summer event (running from late June to late August), made visible to tourists and residents alike by a green line traced on the pavement. Launched in 2012, this cultural initiative stretches for approximately 12 kilometres, catering to a wide variety of tastes: it can lead to a temporary work by a major international contemporary artist, or equally to a well-known architectural landmark from Nantes's rich historical heritage.
It is a truly interesting and enjoyable way to discover the city, and a simple one at that: it is hard to get lost when following the green line, and if you do, finding it again is all it takes to be sure of ending up somewhere worth seeing. What has often happened in previous editions is that visitors have fallen so in love with certain installations that the local authorities have decided to make them permanent, thereby enriching the city with unique works of art.
Nantes today can thus be considered an open-air museum. It is no easy task to pick out the finest stops, but our own mini-ranking places the following among our favourites: Éloge de la transgression by Philippe Ramette, Nymphéa by Ange Leccia and Air by Rolf Julius. All of them, to be truly understood in depth, would need some explanation: if you can, take a guided tour, or else follow the booklet available free of charge from the tourist office, which is genuinely excellent.
Nantes is not on the sea, yet it feels like a maritime city: its history is deeply tied to the shipyards that were once its economic engine. A photograph displayed both in the city museum inside the Château d'Anne de Bretagne and in the Machines galleries speaks volumes in this regard — it captures the citizens and the shipyard workers at the departure of the last vessel ever built in Nantes, in 1987: the image makes all too visible the bewilderment and sadness of those who witnessed the event. The city's "sea", then, is the Loire, and following it is an experience not to be missed, for a number of reasons.
It can be the perfect opportunity for a mini-cruise by boat from April to November, allowing you to enjoy both the fine weather and the works of art scattered along the route. Le Voyage à Nantes does not, in fact, limit itself to the city alone: from Nantes to Saint-Nazaire, the estuary route stretching 120 kilometres features 30 contemporary artworks by internationally renowned artists, placed in atypical locations or extraordinary sites, amid fragile nature reserves and gigantic industrial buildings. These stops on the tour along the Loire can be discovered not only by river, but also by car, by bicycle or on foot. What you will see will surprise you: the Maison dans la Loire will appear to be sinking — but it won't — and le Serpent d'océan is as mesmerising as a charmer's snake, it is so beautiful.
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This is not something just for children, and it is not an amusement park: Les Machines de l'île are extraordinary, born from the brilliant and slightly mad minds of two architects, François Delaroziere and Pierre Orefice, who drew their inspiration from no less than Jules Verne — who was born in Nantes and whose museum can be visited there — as well as from our own Leonardo da Vinci. In essence, these are moving robots, some of them gigantic, truly spectacular, displayed in the city's former shipyards, now converted into a kind of hangar — they call them galleries — to house these mechanical beings. The best known is certainly the Elephant, which visitors can climb aboard and ride around the square in front of the park: it will quite literally take your breath away, and you will never want to get off this creature that sprays water from its trunk as if it were real, moves its enormous ears and walks with a slow, almost hypnotic gait.
But there is more: there are also the rides of the Carrousel des mondes marins — a magnificent take on the carousels you normally see. Try those too, but choose carefully which one you want to ride: they are all incredible, but your ticket is valid for one ride only! An added reason to come here and try these experiences is that you are helping to support an organisation that actually defends elephants. If all this wonder still hasn't been enough, to see Nantes from another angle, take the boat that in just a few minutes brings you to Trentemoult, a former fishing village on the Loire, very charming and perfect for eating outside during the warmer months.
We often recommend a visit to the city market because it encapsulates and explains so much about a city and its atmosphere, and Nantes is no exception. The Marché de Talensac is located in the neighbourhood of the same name, to the north of the Loire, and brings together local producers from Brittany, the Vendée and the Loire Valley. For more than 80 years this h
