Taxi Redon → Nantes

The Redon to Nantes journey links the Breton river crossroads to the great Loire metropolis, crossing varied landscapes that tell the geological and human story of Loire-Atlantique. Redon, at the confluence of the Vilaine and the Oust, is a water town par excellence: the navigable Vilaine long carried barges laden with Guérande salt and forest timber. The Nantes-to-Brest canal, inaugurated in 1842 after thirty-six years of monumental works, runs through Redon and today offers a 360-kilometre river tourism and cycling route popular in summer. The route to Nantes crosses the Pontchâteau plain and skirts the margins of the Grande Brière, France's second-largest wetland after the Camargue. This 7,000-hectare marsh, classified as a regional nature park, is an extraordinary ecosystem of peat bogs, reed beds and flood meadows, home to bitterns, marsh harriers and countless species of ducks and waders. The Briérons, centuries-old marsh inhabitants, developed a unique culture of fishing, hunting and peat harvesting, preserved in traditional reed-thatched cottages. Nantes, the destination, is a metropolis of 660,000 in full cultural and economic renaissance, known worldwide for its Machines de l'Ile, Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne and Voyage a Nantes summer art trail.