Nantes

Mileage: unchanged

After leaving the Brittany region with our journey yesterday and traveling to the Pays de la Loire, it was time to visit a city once again. Nantes on the Loire.

The former shipyard and port city has developed since the 1990s into a university and cultural city.

We traveled with the well-developed public transport system, using buses and trams, to the city center and started our tour at the tourist information office, which presented itself under the title 'Le voyage à Nantes'.

Then we crossed the street to the 'Château des ducs de Bretagne', which was named so because the city belonged to that region until the 1940s and even served as its capital for a time. From the castle walls, we had a good view of the LU tower.

From the Château, we continued along the 'Ligne verte', the green line painted throughout the entire city, where all the major sights were lined up.

Our next stop was at the 'Cathédrale St-Pierre St-Paul'.

Then we skipped a few centuries of history, as our next destinations were the 'Machines de l’île' and 'Le Grand Éléphant'. It was absolutely impressive what the artists and engineers created here in the former Atlantic shipyard. Real steampunks were in paradise here.

Our visit to the 'Musée Jules Verne' was very brief, as the small museum was located in a residential building without air conditioning, and the room temperature of 38 degrees matched the outside temperature, just more humid, almost tropical. It was a wonder that the humidity did not condense on the displays. However, they had a solution: starting tomorrow, the museum would be temporarily closed.

The final stage was the 'Jardin Extraordinaire', and it truly was an extraordinary garden! We entered the former quarry from above. A steel staircase led us down the 25-meter high cliffs into the garden. A waterfall provided pleasant temperatures, and the streams that spread across the area nourished the flora so well that it was significantly greener and lusher here compared to the rest of the city.

We could have spent two more days in Nantes and still not seen everything, but for today, after six hours at 38 degrees in the shade (What shade?) it was simply time to stop. We wanted to go back to the sea.