Love Letter to Nantes

Thank you Nantes for welcoming us to France.

As we pack up our lives once again and hit the road to Lille, we bid a warm adieu to the City of Nantes. Nantes is a lively and boisterous town, full of families on bikes and people who actually celebrate life.

We finally made it to the city history museum, located in the towns castle. I love the architecture of this museum. While the structure of the massive building is sound, the inside floors are long gone. Instead of restoring them, a new structure was built within the walls. It combines a minimalist palate to appreciate the stonework and details of the exhibition. It all starts with Anne of Brittany, Nantes’ kind of patron saint.

The city made was a big player in the transatlantic slave trade and the museum doesn’t shy away from confronting this uncomfortable truth.

It also goes into lots of detail on the evolving map of the city from it Roman foundation to modern day.

Some Medieval finds from castle grounds

The walls bear the preserved graffiti of prisoners.

And a fun find about this particular Breton instrument, which we heard played during a concert of traditional Breton music, played in the walls of one of the other buildings within castle walls.