Nantes in 3 days: the city that reinvented itself through art — the giant mechanical elephant on the old shipyards, Jules Verne's hometown and the Loire Valley wine country producing France's finest oyster wine.
12 metres tall, 45 tonnes, carrying 50 passengers through the old shipyard island — the most extraordinary public art in France.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideBuckwheat crepe with Breton sausage and mustard in the medieval quarter at the heart of the city.
Contemporary architecture, the HAB Galerie and the former LU biscuit factory tower on the regenerated industrial island.
Bourgneuf Bay oysters with a Loire Valley Muscadet sur lie at a riverside brasserie.
The three-tiered glass and iron arcade lit at night — the finest 19th-century commercial interior in the Loire region.
The seat of the Dukes of Brittany and the most honest city history museum in France — including the slave trade's role in Nantes's prosperity.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe soft, pungent local cheese with a Muscadet glass at a Bouffay wine bar.
Manuscripts, illustrated editions and the models that inspired 20,000 Leagues, Journey to the Centre and Around the World in 80 Days.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe finest French Renaissance funerary monument (1507) and 1979 abstract stained glass in the same cathedral.
The Loire Valley's great dishes: slow-cooked pork spread and pike with the butter sauce invented in Nantes.
8,000 hectares of crisp white wine 30 min south of Nantes — France's largest white wine AOC.
Tasting the difference between young Muscadet and 3-year sur lie aged — France's finest oyster wine.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe definitive Loire food pairing — Atlantic oysters with the wine grown to go with them.
The Nantes botanical garden with extraordinary camellia collection and the Erdre River walk.
The most beautiful restaurant room in Nantes — ceramic tiles, mirrored walls and the plateau de fruits de mer.