Nantes

The writer Stendhal remarked of 19th-century Nantes, "I hadn't taken twenty steps before I recognized a great city." Since then, the river that flowed around the upper-crust Ile Feydeau neighborhood has been filled in and replaced with a rushing torrent of traffic, and now major highways cut through the heart of town. Still, Nantes is more than the sum of its traffic jams. Stay a spell to discover its many charms.