In the city of Nantes, in the Loire-Atlantique department of the Pays de la Loire region, in western France

 "Travel enables us to enrich our lives with new experiences, to enjoy and to be educated, to learn respect for foreign cultures, to establish friendships, and above all to contribute to international cooperation and peace throughout the world."

-- Jules Verne
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(in western France) The city of Nantes, in the Loire-Atlantique department of the Pays de la Loire region, Nantes is found at the head of the estuary of the Loire River, where it is joined by the Erdre and the Sèvre rivers, 35 miles (56 km) from the sea.
+ Nantes became a commercial center under the Romans. The Normans occupied it from 834 to 936. After a struggle in the Middle Ages between the counts of Nantes and Rennes for the sovereignty of Brittany in 1560, Francis II, king of France, granted Nantes a constitution. During the Wars of Religion, Nantes joined the Catholic League and opened its gates to Henry IV, king of France in 1598, the year he signed the Edict of Nantes (a charter assuring religious and civil liberties to Protestants). During the French Revolution, Nantes suffered the repression of an envoy of the revolutionary Committee of Public Safety named Jean-Baptiste Carrier. In 1793 Carrier replaced executions by the guillotine with mass drownings. (The city was occupied by Germans during World War II.)

+ Greatly modified by an urban renewal plan adopted in 1920, Nantes was further altered after having been partly destroyed in World War II. Since the 1960s, Nantes has become a dynamic regional center with a diversified economy. Nantes is also a major business center, and is the home of many regional headquarters of both industrial and services firms. Many public and private sector offices have relocated from Paris to the city.

+ Tourism has been stimulated by redevelopment of part of the former docklands and the building of specialized conference facilities. Although the cathedral of Saint-Pierre was built between the 15th and 20th centuries, it retains a Gothic unity. The imposing facade has three finely sculptured doorways and two high towers. The cathedral, bombed during World War II, had been nearly restored in 1972 when a fire largely destroyed the roof. The Renaissance tomb of Francis II, duke of Brittany, was unharmed.

 (The medieval castle had been rebuilt in 1466 by him.) Viewed from the outside, it looks like a fort with crenellated towers, but the inner courtyard is a typical Renaissance palace. The Musée des Beaux-Arts has one of the most important and varied collections of paintings in France.

+ Spirited and innovative, this city has a history of reinventing itself. By the 18th century Nantes was France's main port, and in the 19th century it became an industrial center. The world's first public transport service, the omnibus, began here in 1826. Shipbuilding anchored the city's economy until the late 20th century and when the shipyards relocated westwards to St-Nazaire, Nantes transformed itself into a thriving student and cultural hub.