It was an industrial island — sand and gravel, boatyards — until the 1980s, when the city turned it into a Japanese garden: rocks, water, bamboo, a teahouse, and carefully framed views back across the river.
It is small, you can walk round it in half an hour, and it is startlingly quiet for somewhere fifteen minutes from the centre.
The Erdre is the reason. Where the Loire is broad and industrial, the Erdre is narrow, green and lined with houses that turn to face it.
Combine it with a walk along the Erdre bank rather than treating it as a destination on its own.
Île de Versailles in pictures
