Monday, August 22nd – Day Six – Blain to Nantes
This morning we headed towards another big town, with about 900,000 inhabitants and lots of fast roads! Our overnight stop is in Nantes – the sixth largest city in France and the capital city of the Pays de la Loire region and the Loire-Atlantique département.
By Eric Brosselin – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29150890
Our hotel is once again pretty close to the centre of the city in Hotel Kyraid Nantes Centre Graslim , my heart sank at their description of the simplest directions to the hotel – even translated from French to English they didn’t fill me with confidence – and as they have put their GPS coordinates on their website they must be used to people struggling to find them, and I certainly don’t have the ability to read all this tiny small print, keep a check on where Husband’s bicycle is on the road and drive safely as well!
True to form, after a glorious sunny day driving along almost empty roads, we got hopelessly lost when entering the city!
After enjoying the beauty of this vast countryside, and noticing that having come only a little further south there are golden fronds of fern along the wayside, and the first signs of rusty leaves in the trees we were trying to stay together when we hit a fast moving periphery and lots of aggressive drivers who don’t appreciate cyclists in their fast lane!
Autumn has arrived whilst most of the French are still enjoying their summer holidays but those who are still working are not happy with numbscull tourists who don’t know their way around.
Husband has always felt that only wimps use the cycle lanes, whilst I must agree with the good citizens of Nantes that these special routes are infinitely safer for those who value their lives and wellbeing, so I was very relieved when, finally, John called to say that he was taking the Cycle route into Nantes and we gave up on travelling in together and agreed to meet at the hotel!
Husband took his bicycle lane and I just followed Jane’s instructions, which were great, if a little hairy when I had to drive along a tram line, that is – until we got close to the hotel!
OMG! following a SatNav tyrant who hasn’t got the latest news about the one way and /or pedestrian streets is a veritable nightmare! Round and round we twirled, in ever increasing circles, trying to find a left turn that didn’t actually lead to a one-way street leading in the opposite direction. In fairness to Jane, her every attempt had a new twist and variation, as she tried to find a route that wasn’t ‘barree’ for one reason or another, but despite these efforts at no point were we ever coming within sight of the hotel!
Enraged beyond reason I parked, called Husband for an update on his position ( a lot nearer to the hotel than mine!) and followed the Google map instructions on my Blackberry to find the actual location of our overnight stay. Husband was, by this time, fairly close so we met at the bottom of the road (naturally another one-way street) and checked in together – almost like a normal couple!
The weather is wonderful though, very sunny but not yet too hot to move around in – the hotel is okay and we arrived at the Iles de Machines just in time to see the fantastic mechanical elephant take off on its snorting, squirting and trumpeting round with a joyful group of passengers aboard and many fans trying to avoid getting trampled underfoot.
The eyes have it for this elephant – they open wide, and the lids close and the lashes flutter – just like magic – and it is still amazing crowds over a hundred years on – No built in obsolence in those days!
The small artificial Ile Feydeau, build in the middle of the Loire, in the centre of Nantes, is also the birthplace of science fiction writer Jules Verne 1828-1905. his museum is based very close to the family home on the hillside of the Loire. It is a long time since I have read the books of his extraordinary voyages, but I remember them as very scary, and many of his predictions – especially the submarines are now everyday machines and the giant squid the proven stuff of sailors nightmares.
What struck me as a message for my writing friends is his protestation that to him ” writing was the only source of true happiness! ”
We did make it into the Cathedral in Nantes, another beautiful building almost totally destroyed during WW2 and an exhibition showing the areas of destruction and the painstaking work of reconstruction.
Also notable in the Cathedral is the tomb of the parents of Anne of Brittany who both died before she was ten and three years later French King Charles VIII decided to make off with the young heiress as his bride. After the old King died in 1498 Anne set about spending her money on a memorial to her parents Francois II of Bretagne and Marguerite de Foix. In 1499 she married the new King of France, Louis XII, in the Châteaux de Nantes.
In 1499 she married the new King of France, Louis XII, in the Châteaux de Nantes, which John is sitting beside in the photo below.
In 2012, Nantes was classified as a global city by the GAMMA GaWC ranking of Loughborough University in England. I not sure how high an accolade this is but Nantes is the fourth highest-ranked French city (behind Paris, Lyon and Marseille) according to this classification.
Nantes is ranked ahead of cities such as Porto, New Orleans, Hanover, Genoa and, I am very sad to relate, better than my beloved Florence.
