Where to Stay in Nantes, Pays de la Loire

What is Nantes known for?

Nantes is known as the historic capital of the Dukes of Brittany, whose fortress, the Château des ducs de Bretagne, still stands in the centre. The city gave the world Jules Verne, remembered at the Jules Verne Museum. Machines roam here now.

The Carrousel des mondes marins turns by the water, the Nantes Museum of Arts holds the fine-art collection, and the Musée Dobrée gathers the archaeology of the Pays de la Loire.

What are the main landmarks in Nantes?

Nantes keeps its landmarks around the castle and the river. The Château des ducs de Bretagne dominates the centre, and the Jules Verne Museum honours the writer born in the city. Basilicas mark the skyline.

The Basilique Saint-Nicolas and the basilique Saint-Donatien-et-Saint-Rogatien anchor the older quarters, while the Nantes Museum of Arts, the Musée Dobrée and the warship Maillé-Brézé draw visitors across the town.

What is the history of Nantes?

Nantes rose on the Loire as the historic capital of the Dukes of Brittany, and their fortress, the Château des ducs de Bretagne, still commands the centre. From that castle the dukes governed a Brittany that stood apart from the French crown, and the union of the duchy with France was sealed here. Power sat behind these walls.

The basilique Saint-Donatien-et-Saint-Rogatien and the Basilique Saint-Nicolas carry the older religious history of the medieval town that grew around the ducal seat and the river trade. The Loire made Nantes a great Atlantic port. Its wealth built the mercantile houses of the old town and filled the collections now held in the Musée Dobrée.

In the nineteenth century the city gave the world Jules Verne, whose memory the Jules Verne Museum keeps above the river he watched as a boy. The port's later industry left the riverside island that now turns the Carrousel des mondes marins, and across each age Nantes held its double identity as a Breton ducal capital and a working Loire port at the head of the Pays de la Loire.

Where is Nantes?

Nantes stands on the Loire near the river's Atlantic estuary, at the head of the Pays de la Loire region in western France. The river runs through the city and once split around islands that shaped its old quarters. Low country surrounds it.

The tidal Loire widens west of Nantes toward the sea, and the flat estuary land spreads around the city between the river and the ocean.

What is the climate of Nantes?

Nantes has a mild oceanic climate shaped by the nearby Atlantic. Winters stay cool and wet rather than cold, and summers run warm without long heat, tempered by the sea air off the Loire estuary. Rain falls across the year.

The maritime weather of the Pays de la Loire keeps the country green through the seasons, and hard frosts stay rare so close to the coast.

How do you get to Nantes?

Nantes anchors the transport network of western France. High-speed trains link the city to Paris in around two hours, and an airport serves the wider Pays de la Loire. Routes converge here.

Motorways run out toward the Atlantic coast and Brittany, and from the central station the Château des ducs de Bretagne and the Loire riverside lie within a short walk across the old town.