Nantes builds machines and lets you ride them.

What Nantes is

Nantes sits on the Loire about fifty kilometres from the Atlantic, and it was built by what moved through that river — sugar, salt, ships, and for most of the eighteenth century enslaved people. It was the capital of the dukes of Brittany, and it is still the city Brittany argues about, because the administrative region it sits in is not Brittany.

The shipyards on the island closed in 1987. What the city did next is the reason to come: it kept the sheds and the cranes and filled them with enormous working machines, turned the LU biscuit factory into an arts centre, and ran a green line along the pavement to join it all up.

It also, late and deliberately, built a memorial on the quay the slaving ships left from — two thousand glass plaques set into the ground, one for each expedition.

Nantes at a glance

Country	France · Loire-Atlantique, historically Brittany
Population	~320,000 in the commune; about a million in the metropolitan area
On the river	The Loire, about 50 km from the Atlantic
Language	French. English is common in the centre, less so across the water
Getting around	Three tram lines and a river shuttle on the same ticket
Closing day	Most museums shut on Monday or Tuesday — check which
History	France's largest slaving port. The city marks it on the quay

Start here

Twelve sections as twelve engraved plates bolted to a steel frame — because this city's whole argument is that it kept the machinery and let you walk into it.

All twenty sights