Laid out in the 1790s as Nantes rebuilt itself in pale stone on the profits of the port, it is the point where the shopping streets converge and the place most Nantais would name if you asked where the middle of town is.
The fountain personifies the city of Nantes above, with the Loire and its tributaries — the Erdre, the Cher, the Sèvre, the Loiret — arranged below her. It is an unusually literal statement of a river city's idea of itself.
The square was destroyed in the 1943 bombing and rebuilt, so what you are looking at is a careful reconstruction of the eighteenth-century design.
Sit on the fountain steps for ten minutes. It is the best place in Nantes to watch the city be ordinary.
Place Royale in pictures
