Friday, September 23
We were up bright and early and set off on our continued walking tour of Nantes. This morning we crossed the Loire river which runs through Nantes and into the Atlantic Ocean. This made Nantes an important port from the 18th to 20th centuries when the shipyards were finally closed in 1987. The area where a lot of this shipping related industry took place is now being transformed into an innovation centre with old warehouses being converted to campuses, new energy efficient buildings are going up and it's also being used for expos, conferences and concerts.
The most amazing transformation is in the old shipyard which has become Machines de L'ile, an amazing space full of mechanical animals, birds and insects - a sort of Disney meets Steampunk place! The first creature they created about 8 years ago is a huge mechanical elephant, which takes people for a (slow) ride around the old shipyards. Given that Jules Verne was born here you can see where some of the inspiration and imagination comes from! There was also a Jules Verne inspired Carousel that was massive with all sorts of futuristic creatures that moved about as it went around.
From there we walked back to our hotel via the Nantes Notre Dame church, as we had a luncheon appointment at 1:30. This was at the famous La Cigale restaurant which is decorated in Belle Époque style from the late 1800s. The food was fabulous and it was a great experience to eat there.
After we had a rest to let our meal settle down we set off again to see some areas we hadn't explored before. This took us past another church and the castle (which we're going to do tomorrow) before reaching The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. Unfortunately this building was badly damaged during WW2 so a lot of it has been restored, but it was still very impressive.
We finished today's activities with drinks and nibbles before retiring for the night.
We were up bright and early and set off on our continued walking tour of Nantes. This morning we crossed the Loire river which runs through Nantes and into the Atlantic Ocean. This made Nantes an important port from the 18th to 20th centuries when the shipyards were finally closed in 1987. The area where a lot of this shipping related industry took place is now being transformed into an innovation centre with old warehouses being converted to campuses, new energy efficient buildings are going up and it's also being used for expos, conferences and concerts.
The most amazing transformation is in the old shipyard which has become Machines de L'ile, an amazing space full of mechanical animals, birds and insects - a sort of Disney meets Steampunk place! The first creature they created about 8 years ago is a huge mechanical elephant, which takes people for a (slow) ride around the old shipyards. Given that Jules Verne was born here you can see where some of the inspiration and imagination comes from! There was also a Jules Verne inspired Carousel that was massive with all sorts of futuristic creatures that moved about as it went around.
From there we walked back to our hotel via the Nantes Notre Dame church, as we had a luncheon appointment at 1:30. This was at the famous La Cigale restaurant which is decorated in Belle Époque style from the late 1800s. The food was fabulous and it was a great experience to eat there.
After we had a rest to let our meal settle down we set off again to see some areas we hadn't explored before. This took us past another church and the castle (which we're going to do tomorrow) before reaching The Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. Unfortunately this building was badly damaged during WW2 so a lot of it has been restored, but it was still very impressive.
We finished today's activities with drinks and nibbles before retiring for the night.
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