Château des ducs de Bretagne

Nantes

A first fortress was built in 1207 by Guy de Thouars, regent of the Duchy of Brittany, on the Gallo-Roman wall of the city of the Namnetes. From 1466, Duke Francis II and then his daughter Anne of Brittany — Queen of France through her successive marriages to Charles VIII in 1491 and Louis XII in 1499 — had the present château rebuilt, combining defensive granite curtain walls with Renaissance facades whose loggias open onto the inner courtyard, a symbol of Breton ducal power on the eve of Brittany's union with the French Crown in 1532. On 13 April 1598, Henri IV signed the Edict of Nantes here, granting Protestants freedom of worship and ending the Wars of Religion. The château then served as a royal residence, a garrison and a state prison: the superintendent Nicolas Fouquet was briefly held here in 1661. In 1800, the accidental explosion of a military powder magazine installed in the Tour des Espagnols destroyed part of the building. Listed as a historic monument as early as 1840, the château was restored from the 1990s and reopened in 2007 as the Nantes history museum, preserving within its moats and round towers six centuries of ducal, royal and then municipal history.

Getting there : Inner courtyard and ramparts freely accessible at no charge; Nantes history museum admission charge; right in the city centre, 5 minutes' walk from Nantes railway station.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound