- “Secret courses and covered passages” is one of the most successful tours offered by Nantes Tourisme.
- For two hours, we discovered the city center from a different angle with the guide Pascal Cassin.
We know their names but much less their history. Or else, we pass by without even suspecting their existence. The center of Nantes is full of passages and small hidden courtyards, witnesses of the history of the city. So much so that Nantes tourisme has imagined a two-hour route (10 €), which is one of the most requested by tourists (behind the traditional Nantes Promenade).
During the holidays, we discovered the city center from a different angle with the tour guide from Nantes tourism Pascal Cassin. He knows every corner but above all, he has the keys if necessary! Small selection.
A convent before the café-theater and its pretty courtyard
For the first, no code is needed. Just dare to enter the pretty cobbled and very green courtyard of the Compagnie du café théâtre, rue des Carmélites. "This is one of the only orders, with the Jesuits, who was able to settle inside the city in the 17th century," says our guide. If, since then, the famous concert hall has settled on the site, there are still some traces of this former convent, which later became a prison and then barracks. You will look next time, we can still guess the arches above the windows!
One of the rare mansions in the heart of Bouffay
We thought they were more numerous, wrongly. "The bombings of the Second World War and the works did not help, but there were not that many private mansions at the time," explains Pascal Cassin. Quite simply because the Parliament was in Rennes, and not in Nantes ”. It is therefore at 8 rue de l'Emery (today, this is the Patio'nnement restaurant) that you will be able to see one of them, the Hôtel de Bruc, which dates from the end of 15th or early 16th century. “A noble family lived there, we are very close to the castle and therefore to power. »Stained glass and structure of the time have been reconstructed. 70% of the tufa stones have been changed.
Behind the facades of Feydeau Island
Difficult to imagine what is hidden behind the majestic facades of the quay Turenne or the rue Kervegan. At n ° 11, and this time thanks to a key, here we are in the "oval courtyard", in the middle of these "investment properties", then occupied by tenants, often owners, while the port activity explodes just before the revolution. "The terrain was very unstable on Feydeau Island," reports the guide. It took 60 years to build 23 buildings, using stilts and beams. Among them is the birthplace of Jules Verne.
The most famous of the passages also has its secrets
It is obviously the best known, but that is not why the Pommeraye passage has no secrets. The first of them: it is unique in Europe! "The passage is 134m long but it has a drop of almost 10m," says Pascal Cassin. It is the only passage built on three levels. ”Second curiosity, the more one climbs, the more its decoration is fleshed out. "Opened in 1843, it joined a working-class district, the port, that of the bourgeoisie and luxury, around Place Graslin," explains the guide. Today, there are four accesses but at the time, there were only two. "
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