Nort-sur-Erdre / Nantes

On the final stage of the Régalante, you share the way with the Vélodyssée cycle route, following the Canal de Nantes à Brest. En route, discover further charming ports along the Erdre River and savour the cultural and gastronomic scenes around the metropolis of Nantes, also known by its name in the Breton language, Naoned. In the city centre, the imposing forms of the Château des Ducs de Bretagne contain a major museum recounting the history of this port with its links across the world, while further museums and art works are dotted around town, including many giant art installations displayed in the open. Nantes, for a time the capital of the Duchy of Brittany, today provides a particularly wonderful variety of aspects for enjoying relaxed city life and culture. And if you wish to continue on further touring by bike from here, you’re spoilt for choice, as the city stands at a junction of several major cycle routes: the Loire à Vélo, the Vélodyssée, and the Vélidéale… so, this really is an ideal place from which to head out on further cycling adventures!

The route

A mix of small, quiet roads shared with motorized traffic and stretches on greenways. Note carefully, at Nort-sur-Erdre, at the place named La Blanchetière, you need to cross the canal, as the route then continues along the other bank, going in the direction from which you’ve just come (which can give the impression that you’re turning around, but fear not, it does make sense!). A cycle lane running beside the RD69 road allows you to ride safely from Sucé-sur Erdre towards Nantes. Take care, though, from La Chapelle-sur-Erdre on, where you enter more urban parts. Once in the orbit of Nantes, traffic tends to be busy, even if several stretches of your route sticking close to the Erdre are segregated. Note also that from La Chapelle-sur-Erdre onwards, you need to follow the signage for the Vélodyssée cycle route, with just a few signs reminding you that you’re also still on the Régalante cycle route.

In Nantes, there’s the possibility of linking up with several other cycle routes, notably: EV1 the Vélodyssée; EV6 the Loire à Vélo or La Vélidéale. 

Don't miss

• The Maison Éclusière de la Tindière, a lock-keeper’s house turned summer café, with accommodation (3 rooms).
• L'Écluse de Quiheix, a lock with glorious views onto the Erdre and the Plaine de la Poupinière, the latter the name for the wide stretch of the Erdre here, resembling a lake.
• Mazerolles: glorious views of the Erdre, so wide here too that it looks like a lake; a large portion of the marshes around here have been listed as a specially protected natural area, Natura 2000 Marais-Erdre; local Baludik digital track game, via free mobile app; the Base Nautique, for water-based activities; picnic areas.
• Sucé-sur-Erdre: its port, nicknamed  "the pearl of the Erdre"; restaurants looking onto the Erdre River; local Baludik digital track game, via free mobile app; the public gardens of Ganuchaud and Germaine Le Goff, the latter below the Manoir de la Châtaigneraie, all with great views over the Erdre; the Maison de Blanche Neige (Snow White’s House), a private home, worth seeing from the outside; free campsite for one night only in a simple tent (book via the website for bivouacs); safe bike shelters in the planning both at the station and in the town centre, as well as luggage lockers and a bike repair halt near the tourist office.
• Nantes:
  • the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, one of the key historic monuments in the city centre, with vast wings dating from the 15th to the 18th centuries, the courtyard, ramparts and moat gardens to be visited on the outside, the Musée d'Histoire de Nantes within covering the city’s history from its beginnings up to the contemporary metropolis you can explore today.
  • Île de Versailles: an island in the Erdre just north of the centre of Nantes, the Maison de l’Erdre staging exhibitions based around the river and its aquatic environment, and surrounded by a Zen Japanese garden.
  • Bateau Ouch, for cruises on the Erdre at aperitif time. 
  • Talensac Market: held not far from the Île de Versailles just north of the city centre, the oldest and most important market in Nantes, a veritable institution.
  • Les Machines de l'île: on a major central island in the Loire, an extraordinary artistic and engineering enterprise, creating outsized moving animals (some of which you can book to ride on) inspired in part by the imagination of great French author Jules Verne, who lived much of his life in Nantes, in part on the amazingly inventive engineering mind of Leonardo da Vinci, who spent the last few years of his life upstream on the Loire, and in part on the powerful industrial heritage of the city, Nantes’s naval shipyards long based on this island in times past.