A whistlestop tour of Nantes
Wednesday 7 June - we are en route to the French Riviera tomorrow which involves two more TGV’s, the first departing from Nantes. We thought we would at least give ourselves a half day here to have a look around before we travel south.
Up early and into the car by 7.00am we arrived in Nantes at 10.00am and dropped the car back at the rental office. First impressions were good, a city with some character and certainly more interesting buildings than Brest.
Map in hand we walked along almost parallel to the Erdre River and passed the Château de Bretagne, which of course warranted a visit. This turned out to be about a two hour one in the end as there was so much to see whilst walking around the twists, turns and up and down the old curving staircases of the castle. It was the residence of the Dukes of Brittany between the 13th & 16th centuries and subsequently the Breton residence of the French Monarchy and is now the Nantes History Museum. So many interesting exhibits, very well curated, showcasing 1,100 objects covering historical events around the castle and the city, the slave trade, the world wars and industrialisation, and spread over 32 rooms. However, two hours in I was starting to feel slightly dizzy, dehydrated and rather claustrophobic, we were quite far down in the depths of the castle and it was so hot (31 degrees outside) and obviously no air-conditioning inside, so I left Geoff behind and very slowly found my way out of the maze of rooms and staircases into the castle library bookshop.
After a long cool drink, we continued our walk through the old town – very pretty with plenty of cafés, bars, restaurants and shops, in a higgledy piggledy layout which made it a very interesting . Lovely churches, St Croix being one of them, and then a stop at La Fraiserie where we treated ourselves to a fresh strawberry ice cream, the queue outside said it all…..Nantes is famous for its strawberries which have a delicious sweet flavour, so it was a perfect refreshment on a very hot afternoon and worth the wait which we used to admire all the other items for sale, strawberry juices, jams, frozen strawberry sorbet desserts and strawberry macarons.
Far too hot to walk back to the hotel we hopped on the tram which was so easy to navigate and stopped virtually outside. A rest, a quick (cold) shower and change, and we were back on the tram and into the Place du Change, a lovely square where we joined hundreds of early evening after-work revellers having a cocktail in the early evening sunshine.
Our last “must do” in Nantes, was for Geoff to tuck into some local oysters, accompanied by a glass of local Muscadet and this he did, in style, with a lovely platter of oysters, bulot (sea snails), and prawns accompanied by two home-made sauces and some of the frites from non-fish-eater Ro’s Steak frites dinner!
Thursday 8 June – 0430 hours and we’re up early this morning for our first TGV to Paris Montparnasse. We booked a hotel opposite the station so it was an easy walk dragging (far too much) baggage into the station and a breeze getting onto the train which left on the dot. Arriving in Paris two hours later, we jumped into a taxi to transit to Gare de Lyon, driving past Ben’s old flat again, in rue St-Germain, enroute. I’m now sitting on the TGV to Nice typing this – a six hour journey, very comfortable and dleightful to look at the sunny French countryside and villages whizzing past us.
The French Riviera awaits!