The Secrets of
Nantes

Where Dukes Built Empires and Machines Walk the Earth

At the confluence of the Loire and the Erdre, Nantes has reinvented itself more dramatically than almost any city in France. Capital of the Dukes of Brittany, hub of Atlantic trade, and today a city where giant mechanical elephants roam former shipyards.

From the fortress where a duchess defied a king, to the harbour that shaped — and scarred — a nation, these ten stops walk you through 1,000 years of defiance, reinvention, and imagination.