Our bikes spent the night in the garbage room in Lorient, and then they (and we) took the train from Lorient to Nantes. We stayed in a place near the train station that was in kind of sketchy area, but it was inexpensive. I guess we are cheap.
We had visited Nantes last year, but stayed in a different area, and it was as if we had never been there before in terms of what we saw. We stayed in the vibrant tourist old heart of Nantes before, chock-a-block with cafes crowded with young people. It was also warm and lovely weather then, but not so much this trip! And so it might have been that the weather dampened everyone’s enthusiasm. In any case, we saw lots of different sights.
We then ate at a very cool restaurant called La Souris D’Agneau (the mouse lamb). It was a classic old world French restaurant, run by the owner and his wife (we guessed) who were charming and welcoming. And he even gave us free glasses of nice champagne after dessert. It was a lovely date night kind of evening.
We stayed in Nantes for a couple nights at a lovely apartment, with the weather not as bad as predicted but both of us were still happy to sit out the strong winds and intermittent heavy rain. It was also nice to experience a different side of Nantes, that we both liked better.
Leaving Nantes towards the Atlantic, we took a path on the south side of the Loire, which was so much better than the path we took last year on the north side of the Loire. The former industrial areas have been used and/or converted into interesting places, including restaurants, amusements and artistic sites. We passed one of the big attractions: a giant mechanical elephant that you can ride in.
We could see St.Nazaire across the river, the refineries and other industrial buildings. On our side, we were on small roads right on the edge of the river. The weather is going to be a bit better today, but we’ll again have rain and very strong winds in the next couple days. This has been a very wet summer so far in Brittany.
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