For our last week-end in France, Feng and I went back on the Atlantic coast. We spent a few days with my family and left to explore St Nazaire, a few kilometers away. The town isn’t pretty: it was heavily bombed during WWII and 80% of it was destroyed. It was rebuilt right after the war in a somewhat minimalist style — understand one main street and square buildings scattered around.

I love cities by night. Most change a lot and reveal a totally different atmosphere — it’s like traveling. I’ve already shown you snapshots of Ottawa by night, Toronto, London, Paris… Here is Nantes, my hometown.

The 12 meters high mechanical elephant is made from 45 tons of wood and steel. Several times a day, it takes passengers for a walk around the Isle of Nantes, located in the middle of the Loire River. Riding it is quite expensive but it’s free to just see it move around, wink, trumpet, and spray nearby photographers with water (oh well, it was a hot day).

Jules Verne, the famous French author, was born in Nantes. And today, in the warehouses of the former shipyards of Nantes, artists try to recreate a travel-through-time world which borrow from both Jules Verne’s imagination and Leonardo da Vinci’s passion for mechanic.
The site has two main attractions: the Great Elephant and the Marine Worlds Carrousel.

This is a sleepy village 45 minutes from Nantes. Its claim to fame is the cookie factory. Other than that, there isn’t much: a roundabout (French love roundabouts and even the smallest village has one), a church, a bar-tabac (a small corner store) and a news agent.

Sunset is around 10:30 pm in France right now and with the summer heat, we had plenty of time and motivation to roam around Paris at night. I have my favorite spots, they are not so original but they are lovely: le Louvre, along the Seine, the Trocadéro, the Eiffel Tower…

Once we reached the doors of Versailles, we realized we were in trouble. The lineup was so long I couldn’t even find where it started. I asked how long it would take us to get tickets: at least 90 minutes. And to actually get into the Palace, we had to queue another 90 minutes. Feng walked around a bit as we tried to assess how to make the best out of the situation. I looked up at the Palace and I saw people on top of each other by the open windows. No way I’m queuing at least 3 hours for a rush visit.

We got extremely lucky with the hotel the first couple of days: we had booked online again from London with Expedia (which really should be paying me for all the times I mentioned them!). The hotel turned out to be a three stars renovated building in a quiet street, and we had the biggest bathroom I had never seen.

After London, Paris. Don’t hate me for saying it, but at first sight, it felt like going from Peru to Bolivia.
I have never liked Paris. Go ahead, call me a little spoiled French girl, I’m used to it. Saying you don’t like Paris usually gets hate look from people who are dreaming to visit the city of lights, and brings contempt from other French people. They shrug at me, saying: « oui mais bon… c’est Paris quand même ! ».