Nantes travel guide

Top 10 sights in Nantes

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1. 

   1

   Nantes Cathedral

   Building began in 1434 on the site of a Romanesque church and dragged on for 457 years, ending only in 1891. Listed as a monument historique since 1862, the Flamboyant Gothic cathedral holds the tomb of Francis II, the last duke of Brittany.

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2. 

   2© Jibi44, avec l'aimable autorisation de LP de Nantes · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Château des ducs de Bretagne

   The castle of the dukes of Brittany on the right bank of the Loire, their residence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century and then the French royal seat in Brittany. Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes here in 1598; thirty-two rooms now hold the city history museum.

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3. 

   3© Vincent Valentin · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Nantes Museum of Arts

   A fine arts museum created by consular decree on 31 August 1801 as one of fifteen provincial museums, and among the largest outside Paris. Ingres, Courbet, Delacroix and a strong Kandinsky group are in it; the 1900 building reopened in 2017 after a six-year rebuild.

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4. 

   4© François de Dijon · CC BY-SA 4.0

   basilique Saint-Donatien-et-Saint-Rogatien

   A neo-Gothic church of the late 19th century over the reputed graves of Donatian and Rogatian, brothers martyred at Nantes about the year 300. Raised to minor basilica in 1889, it was gutted by fire during roof work in 2015 and has since been restored.

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5. 

   5© Irma conseil · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Basilique Saint-Nicolas

   A neo-Gothic basilica in the centre of Nantes, designed by Jean-Baptiste Lassus — who also restored Notre-Dame in Paris — and finished in 1869. Its spire of eighty-five metres is a fixed point of the city skyline.

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6. 

   6© Eusebius · CC BY 3.0

   Île de Versailles Japanese Garden

   A Japanese garden on an artificial island in the Erdre, made from spoil dug out for the Nantes-Brest canal. It was laid out in the 1980s on the strength of the city's twinning with Nagasaki, with bamboo, a waterfall and a tea pavilion.

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7. 

   7

   Musée Dobrée

   An archaeology and decorative arts museum in the Graslin quarter, built on the collection of the shipowner Thomas Dobrée. Its best-known object is the gold reliquary that held the heart of Anne of Brittany, the duchess who twice became queen of France.

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8. 

   8© Selbymay · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Château de Goulaine

   A fifteenth-century château east of Nantes held by the same family for about a thousand years, one of the longest unbroken tenures in France. Its Muscadet vineyards are still worked and a butterfly greenhouse operates in the grounds.

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9. 

   9© Florestan · CC BY 3.0

   Tomb of Francis II, Duke of Brittany

   A tomb of 1507 in Nantes Cathedral for Francis II, the last duke of Brittany, and his wife, commissioned by their daughter Anne. Its four corner figures of the cardinal virtues by Michel Colombe are among the finest Renaissance sculptures in France.

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10. 

    10© Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Maillé-Brézé

    A T 47-class destroyer commissioned in 1957 and paid off in 1988, now moored on the Loire quay at Nantes as a museum ship. Visitors are taken through the engine rooms and the operations room on guided tours only.

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1. 

   1© Llann Wé² · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Notre-Dame-des-Landes ZAD

   Farmland north of Nantes reserved for an airport from the 1960s and occupied for decades by opponents who farmed it, becoming France's best-known zone to defend. The government abandoned the airport in January 2018 after fifty years of dispute.

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2. 

   2© Jean-Marc Ayrault · CC BY 2.0

   Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery

   A memorial on the Quai de la Fosse, opened in 2012, addressing Nantes's position as France's largest slave-trading port — about 1,750 voyages carrying some 550,000 people. The names of the ships and their years are set into a walkway sunk along the river wall.

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3. 

   3© Mith · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Planète Sauvage

   A safari park at Port-Saint-Père near Nantes, with a drive-through section and a dolphin lagoon on eighty hectares. About a thousand animals are kept, and the park has bred several endangered antelope species.

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4. 

   4© Gwendal · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Notre-Dame de Bon-Port

   A neoclassical basilica of 1846 by Seheult and Chenantais, circular in plan under a dome, in the Chantenay quarter downstream of the centre. It served the sailors and shipowners of the Loire estuary.

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5. 

   5© Selbymay · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Saint-Clément, Nantes

   A nineteenth-century Catholic church in Nantes, built to serve the growing quarters north of the centre. It replaced an older chapel on the same street.

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6. 

   6© Raimond Spekking · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Natural History Museum of Nantes

   A natural history museum founded in the early nineteenth century, holding a whale skeleton, a large mineral collection and a vivarium of live snakes. Its Egyptian mummy and the regional geology of the Armorican massif are the other draws.

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   Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Villeneuve-lez-Nantes (Le Bignon, Loire-Atlantique, France)

   A Cistercian abbey at Les Sorinières south of Nantes, founded in 1201 by Constance of Brittany and dissolved in 1790 during the Revolution. Part of the buildings survive and are used as a hotel.

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8. 

   8© Rehtse · CC BY-SA 3.0

   place Saint-Pierre

   The square east of Nantes Cathedral, where a stretch of the Gallo-Roman wall and a medieval gate stand at one side. The successive enclosures of the city are legible in a few metres here.

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9. 

   9© Eusebius · CC BY 3.0

   place Royale

   A square designed in 1786 by Mathurin Crucy and built in 1790 after the medieval ramparts came down. Its fountain of 1865 personifies the Loire and its tributaries; the square was rebuilt after bombing in 1943.

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10. 

    10© TS1961 · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Assalam Mosque

    A mosque in Nantes begun in 2009 and completed in 2012, serving the city's Muslim community with prayer halls, a library and teaching rooms. It was funded largely by local subscription over several years.

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