Le Voyage à Nantes: Summer 2014

Each summer the city of Nantes invites artists and designers to participate in an urban art trail, Le Voyage à Nantes. A 12-kilometre green line painted on the pavement links 42 sites, comprising the city’s existing artistic highlights and a series of temporary outdoor art installations and sculptures specially created for the event.

Another highlight is La Cantine du Voyage, a pop-up canteen-style restaurant on the banks of the Loire, where visitors can participate in cookery classes or sample the fresh, local produce prepared by the area’s chefs.

These pop-ups combine with Nantes’s elegant architecture and abundance of public green space to reflect the atmosphere of imagination and originality for which it’s already famed.

Add in the Machines de l’Île’s giant mechanical elephant that’s become symbolic of the city, and the Estuaire art trail of open-air sculptures which leads to the Atlantic Ocean at Saint-Nazaire, and it’s no wonder that this knack for urban innovation has put Nantes firmly on the map as a major creative hub.

● Le Voyage à Nantes runs from 27 June to 31 August and is free to all. For more information, please visit www.levoyageanantes.fr