With Julien Braud, the young talented Muscadet winemaker behind the successful Forty-Ounce Muscadet brand. Julien is like Steve Jobs, he works on a few crus, but they are damned good. He’s also such a biodynamic samurai that he even uses horses to plow his vineyards.
We are not on the movie set of Alien. Rather, winemaker Jérôme Bretaudeau is carefully extracting a sample of aged wine from his egg-shaped concrete tanks. His crus are organic, biodynamic, and complex. He’s also experimenting with historical storage techniques on the right, in terra-cotta amphorae.
Standing beside Muscadet vigneron Eric Chevalier, a polymathic winemaker, grower, and oenologist who isn’t just satisfied offering bourgeois tastings in his wine cellars; he also wants you to hike through his vineyards, dig the soil, sample his grapes, and otherwise directly experience the chalky geology of the Côtes de Grandlieu terroir that gives his wines that crushing salinity for which he is known.
View from the Jade Coast trail (or Côte de Jade), a picturesque 14 km coastal hiking trail that follows the rocky promontories and bluffs, vernacular fishing shacks, tidal oyster farms and beaches, Celtic cairns (known as dolmens), and even modernist James Bond-era spas and changing rooms along the Brittany coastline, between la Bernerie and Pornic.
An improvised picnic: a dozen Brittany oysters, a zest of lemon, a fresh baguette, some gritty salt rock butter (beurre de baratte à la fleur de sel de Guérande), and a salty glass of Muscadet!
Our summer retreat is ideally situated in the historic fisherman’s village of Trentemoult. Nestled along the Loire River, it’s 10 min. by ferry from downtown Nantes, 10 min. by car from the Muscadet wine country, and 20 min. by regional train from the Brittany coast.
Trentemoult was and is known for its colorful, seawall facing guinguettes (or informal, beer-garden-like outdoor markets and cafes) where local fishermen would sell civelles or young eels, a rare delicacy today. The above building on the right, which still exists today as a private art studio for a former member of the French Special Forces, was one such place where people would eat, drink, and be merry during the weekend.
Une petite faim? A few steps from our retreat, you can enjoy fresh langoustines, a glass of Stéphane Orieux Muscadet, and the setting sun on the Loire River.
Here is your view while you’re enjoying those langoustines. Because we’re so close to the Loire River estuary, the river is an extension of the ocean, with seagulls, salty breezes, and striking high / low tides.
A classic sea captain’s house dominating the quay of Trentemoult. Today it accommodates an authentic oyster shack for the proletariat (“L'Huitre Ouvrière” or The Workers’ Oysters) and a Victorian-style waffle house / ice-cream parlor (“La Rainette Bleue” or the Blue Frog).
Tasting the exceptional “round” or balanced Muscadets of Jérôme Bretaudeau. Here, his signature cru Gaia, served at Michelin-starred restaurants, is so popular that it is out of stock. Jérôme was kind enough to share one of his last bottles from the 2018 season!
Although we’re across the river from downtown Nantes, Trentemoult, which housed centuries of intrepid fisherman and seafarers, has the feel of a quaint Mediterranean harbor, with its tidal river; docked sailing boats; waterfront cafes and restaurants; organic, medina-like streets and trinity homes; and exotically introduced coastal vegetation from foreign lands.
In one of the small streets of Trentemoult, a historic butcher shop renovated for the movie La Reine Blanche with Catherine Deneuve.
An assortiment of local fish (herring, sardines, mackerel, and cod) served with salicornes (pickled seaweed raised in the salt marshes of Noirmoutier, a local barrier island).
The historic facade of La Guinguette, a popular bistrot in Trentemoult. You can still order the menu on the old ad display: fish stew or friture matelotte with beurre blanc sauce and a glass of Gros-Plant wine.
Trentemoult is a popular destination in many movies (such as the documentary The Gleaners and I by the late Agnès Varda). Facing the Loire river, this old-style appliance store was renovated for the movie set of La Reine Blanche, a film featuring Catherine Deneuve.
In Trentemoult giving a good luck toast to the mariners setting off for the Atlantic Ocean. Such deep sea cargo ships, with the aid of numerous tugboats, routinely maneuver in tight circles through the widest and deepest section of the Loire River (otherwise known as the zone d'évitage) — which happens to be in front of our retreat.
Aboard the Navibus, which crosses the Loire River every 20 min., between our fisherman’s village and downtown Nantes, a post-industrial shipbuilding city once known as the “Venice of the West” for its extensive network of canals (which have been subsequently filled and retrofitted into a modern streetcar system with grass lanes that follow these historic transportation routes).
A close-up of the zone d'évitage. We could hear this ship for miles, along with the distant cries of the hungry sea gulls following its wake.
A fashion design store, along the quay of Trentemoult. You’ll also find nearby cafes, restaurants, a bakery, and an organic farmers’ market.
A renovated sea captain’s house in Trentemoult, a village which, according to local legend, earned its named after thirty (“trente”) brave local sailors fought off a hoard (“moult”) of viking invaders.
Nantes is internationally known for its Jules Verne-inspired mechanical street performances. Back in the early aughts, urban designers and artistic collectives presciently retrofitted obsolescent naval hangars and piers into modular stages for the technical arts. Pictured here is the home of “Les Machines de l’Ile,” a collective of architects, engineers, and street performers, that specializes in the fabrication of gigantic mechanical marionettes, kinetic automatons, and other engineered curiosities. The streets of Nantes serve as the stages for their narratives.
The giant mechanical elephant, which even projects jets of compressed water at unsuspecting pedestrians (and those addicted to smart phones), is worth a trip. As a tribute to Jules Verne, born in Nantes, these machines were designed to evoke the experiences of Phileas Fogg in Around the World in Eighty Days, but with a hybrid Victorian steampunk / World’s Fair / Leonardo da Vinci aesthetic.
Long Ma, a mechanical dragon-horse designed by “Les Machines de l’Ile” to celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between France and China. Future projects include a monumental tree of life that will be visible from Trentemoult (essentially, Nantes’s whimsical response to James Corner’s High Line) and various travelling exhibitions, one of which featured a Captain Sindbad-like fight between a colossal minotaur and a spider, in downtown Toulouse, loosely based on the Greek myth Ariadne.
Have a Wes Anderson-style brunch at la Cigale, a 19th-century art nouveau-style brasserie located in downtown Nantes. The striking blue tile Moroccan interior was a favorite haunt for artists and the local bourgeois — and even served as the the movie set for directors Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda, and many others.
An early-modern palm house (or greenhouse for palm trees and other tropical and subtropical plants) in the Botanical Garden of Nantes, a dense and lush Victorian oasis that contains thousands of exotic plant species collected by the same seafarers who once populated Trentemoult.
Nantes, with its ample supply of concrete hangars and wharfs, has a long-established culture of urban art and graffiti.
Unlike many dying post-industrial cities, Nantes has transformed itself into a leading eco-city by converting its long-abandoned brownfields and warehouses into creative, mixed-use urban landscapes with trendy cafes, restaurants, art galleries, pocket parks, beer gardens, and small-scale apartments.
The famous LU Petit Beurre biscuits were born in Nantes. A connoisseur of Art Nouveau, the founder Lefèvre Utile, commissioned illustrator Alphonse Mucha to design what would become the brand’s emblematic rococo affiches. Although core operations have since moved, the LU factory, now known as Le Lieu Unique (a pun for unique place), still stands today as a preserved explorer’s cafe and experimental arts venue.
The Eiffel towers in Nantes are called Les Grues Titan — iconic industrial monuments that Nantes, as well as UNESCO, has chosen to preserve. There are 2 of them: the Grey Titan and the Yellow Titan.
Le Passage Pommeraye, the oft-photographed 19th-century shopping arcade in Nantes that director Jacques Demy featured in many of his movies, including Lola and the Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
The historic covered market of Talensac abounds with many vestigial curiosities, such as the “chevaline,” a horse butcher shop. Though slaughtering horse is not something one would normally advertise in the US, my mom, as any other French kid of her generation, would often consume horse steak with french fries and black pepper sauce every Thursday. The late Marvin Harris has an excellent discussion of such cross-cultural eating habits in his book Good to Eat.
Night view of the Yellow Titan, the other twin crane, on Île de Nantes, a former brownfield that now features a series of themed pocket parks and biomes, ranging from desert playgrounds to grassy BYOB / BBQ stations, with views of and even over the Loire. This is a landscape architect’s paradise, especially if you have studied landscape urbanism or are familiar with Alexandre Chemetoff, who spent ten years transforming this landscape, or Gilles Clément.
Each summer, Nantes hosts Le voyage à Nantes, a world’s fair featuring land art installations from all around the world. Here an industrial sculpture in the moat of the 13th-century Château des ducs de Bretagne contrasts with the chalky tuffeau fortifications and ramparts that have survived aerial bombings (the castle served as a bunker during WW2) and prior centuries of war, fire, and urban development.
That’s strange. Our Main Line Francophone logo somehow appeared on this mooring bollard…
La Cantine du Voyage, the local version of Paris Plage, is an ephemeral summer beer garden situated in a giant pop-up conservatory along the Loire River.
Situated on the sprawling desert lot in Nantes’ former abattoir district, Transfert is a psychedelic Mad Max-like artistic experiment that is France’s version of Burning Man, except that the festivities last all summer: www.transfert.co
Part of the so-called “cultural exception” in France in which public art is financed by the government, Transfert is open to all for at most a nominal fee and includes such evening activities as a skull slide for kids, a circus tent hosting weird concerts and theatre performances, and even a dry-docked river barge bar (which was once a popular night-club in the ‘60s).
Nantes’ first skyscraper and one of the best preserved examples of the Brutalist “Cité Radieuse” by famed Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier. This vertical concrete village and UNESCO-protected monument, built in Rezé (near Nantes) in the ‘50s for the communist proletariat, still serves as social housing (50%) for its “Corbu” inhabitants who form special citizen boards to protect the exterior concrete cladding, primary-colored balconies, and even cubist rooftop kindergarten. A tour of the grounds includes a visit to an unaltered sample apartment that resembles the interior of a modernist sailboat or a Ken Adam’s James Bond movie set.
Brittany’s wild beaches, which have been protected from suburbanization, haven’t changed much since the days of Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot. Here, a row of retro changing cabins on La Côte Sauvage adorns the coastal biking trail between Le Croisic and La Baule.
Tasting the exceptional 2018 Muscadet crus with winemaker Eric Chevalier whose coastal wines are decidedly maritime, evoking memories of crushed oyster shells and the saline ocean.
More changing stations at the end of our bike journey, this time along the long sandy beaches of the classy resort city of La Baule — a popular summer destination among wealthy Parisians that could have easily been a ‘60s set for the film Mélodie en sous-sol (Any Number Can Win), featuring Alain Delong and Jean Gabin.
A perfect day to hike the Jade Coast with your family. This customs trail (or sentier des Douaniers), which the coast guard had historically created to interdict coastal smugglers, is full of amazing treasures — vernacular fishing huts; menhir and dolmen stones; mid-century villas, hotels, summer camps — and can be completed in an afternoon (or the entire day if you go roundtrip).
Hiking the Jade Coast trail in Pornic. The historic serpentine walls, which resemble coral, have been organically patched over time with sea shells, random beach stone, and randomly sorted sand.
The Jade Coast trail overlooks hundreds of picturesque carrelets and pêcheries (small fishing huts). Some are rudimentary shacks, others are modernist metal cubes for the affluent to entertain guests. My great-grandfather used to have one of the former, but a furious tempest washed it away, and we’re now rebuilding a traditional replacement on our family easement, based on the historical building standards of the area.
Along the coastal hiking trail many secluded coves offer welcome stopping points for a random dip, a picnic, or a nap — and during low-tide, even an opportune fishing break to hunt oysters (huîtres), grey and pink shrimp (crevettes grises and crevettes roses), mussels (moules), and various clams (palourdes, pétoncles, bulots, coques, and berniques).
A row of rustic fishing huts, directly piled into the rock. Only accessible to nimble fishermen and boulderers…
The coastal trail has many untouched mid-century treasures, such as this Brutalist “thalasso” (a maritime spa), built into the cliffside, where many of James Bond’s antagonists must have enjoyed underground salt and mud baths, gambling, and fine meals.
June 1950 — My just-married grandfather enjoying an existential moment, cigarette in hand and tin at his feet, on Le Rocher du Roi (or the Rock of the King), in la Bernerie. This is also the future spot of our fishing hut.
60 years later, the same beach at low-tide. “The Rock of the King” and surrounding cliffs have eroded over time into two defined escarpments, but still stand.
As you probably figured out, we’re big fans of Wes Anderson, especially his unfairly panned film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which pokes fun at Jacques-Yves Cousteau. This is our collage-style hommage to this legacy, as well as the conceptual design for our future fishing hut, in conjunction with Rauch Architecture PLLC (www.raucharchitecture.com), a frequent collaborator with PPX, our graphic design collective.
Low-tide in the harbor of Pornic, a quaint seaside community near Nantes that reminds us of the fictional “Mongibello” harbor town in the film The Talented Mr. Ripley. On the left, the 15th-century castle of Blue-Beard (“Barbe-Bleue”), an infamous nobleman who fought alongside Joan of Arc but was later convicted and hanged as a serial killer. His story is said to be the inspiration for Charles Perrault’s “Bluebeard” folktale. Barring the macabre, this is one of our favorite coastal destinations, easily accessible via local train.
A utilitarian mid-century beach sign crafted by some anonymous bureaucrat. Only giant, mean dogs that attack windsurfers are prohibited.
A pause along the Wild Coast biking trail to watch a popular climbing haunt.
Improvised picnic on an ancient seawall: fresh shrimp and seaweed pickles (salicornes) straight off the boat. Not pictured: fleur de sel baguette and butter.
Sea spiders (araignées) still alive and fierce at the fish market in Pornic. All you need is some good mayonnaise…
Sometimes, the catch can be miraculous — here some palourde clams freshly gathered by my uncle. Butter is optional but recommended!
30 min. from Nantes is La Baule, an exclusive and largely unchanged seaside community where many wealthy Parisians spend their summer vacations in relative comfort given the mild coastal climate. You’ll find beautiful maritime villas, casinos, brasseries, and hotels like the famous l’Hermitage, one of the few 5-star hotels in Brittany.
Riding in class like Steve McQueen with the necessary Kronenbourg crate for freshly caught oysters, shrimp, and clams…
Hotel Royal, the other 5-star luxury hotel in La Baule. With its Second Empire style from the Belle Epoque era, the hotel seems to arise from the imagination of Wes Anderson.
The traditional Breton flag flying high in the lazy shore town of Le Croisic, which is known for its fish market, fresh anchovies, sardines, mackerels, and pickled seaweed (salicornes).
It’s no wonder why the French live so long: at 11:30 sharp (not 11:25 or 11:35), they always enjoy a relaxing aperitif before lunch at 12:30.
An authentic Boule Nantaise club in La Bernerie. Notice the curved gutters. This is a more technical variant of the classical boule game, as one has to utilize the curves to strike the other team’s boules. The most talented player is an 80-some-year-old smoker with a limp. A deceptively easy game in isolation, it takes decades to truly master against tactical opponents.
Check out the retro display of this traditional fishing supplies store — the perfect spot to get equipped for catching shrimp, clams, and oysters.
Many come to France for its cathedrals, but historic lighthouses are the real staple of Brittany given the area’s puzzle-like coastline, powerful tides, misty weather, military history, and proximity to strategic ports and ocean lanes.
Piriac-sur-mer, a quaint fishing village and one of our favorite destinations, is the gateway to wild Brittany with its strong Breton identity, traditional granite houses (hosting such writers as Emile Zola and Alphonse Daudet), rubble slate roofs, buckwheat galettes, and clapping halyards.
Noirmoutier, although only 1 hour by car from Nantes, feels a world way with its untouched salt trade industry, which dates back to the Middle Ages; its seasonal reliance on traditional regattas (pictured above) and unintentionally retro summer camps and campgrounds; and its diverse tidal landscape, ranging from sand dunes to evergreen oak forests, that features one of the best biking loops in coastal France.
A close-up of a salt marsh farm in Noirmoutier, a barrier island where Paludiers (or those specialized in the traditional trade of combing and hand-harvesting the rare and expensive salt crystals known as fleur de sel) use specialized irrigation ditches and pits to both channel and evaporate the ocean water from the strong tides. Each rectangular pit can generate tons of valuable salt, some of which they flavor or season with local spices.
While biking in Noirmoutier, we discovered our new favorite delicacy: seaweed- and salt-infused baguettes, which we later topped with marinated anchovies! Only one local bakery serves them fresh, and we had to fight for the last one! No baguette in Paris remotely compares…
The constant presence of maritime churches, shrines, and cairns along the coastal trail show how the sea shaped the minds of previous generations. The ceiling of this small fisherman’s chapel, for example, on the Island Noirmoutier, was fashioned after the hull of a ship.
This strange and rather utilitarian 1950s-era concrete church, now a private property, has been rebuilt so many times that it looks like no other. Given its strategic elevated location, it served such glorious functions as a radar outpost and a 18th-century customs house. It was also blown up during WW2 and reassembled by the same committed restoration architect who had rebuilt it during the interwar period.
A vernacular seaside grotto in la Bernerie dedicated to St. Anne, the protector of sailors, their families, and the local adventurers and hikers like us!
Saint Nazaire was once a major submarine base for the Germans during WW2; and, as such, the elevated coastline, now the Brittany coastal trail, was fortified with concrete bunkers and radar stations. Some of these structures have been renovated into museums and private residences; but many, such as this one, have been gradually reclaimed by nature and street artists.
The mysterious graffiti artist has struck again! Our logo, Main Line Francophone, stenciled on an abandoned navy yard warehouse…
This is the German U-boat base in Saint Nazaire. Long abandoned, this massive concrete submarine pen was recently converted into wild pastoral roofscape (le Jardin du Tiers-Paysage) by French landscape architect Gilles Clément. The above NATO radome, once scheduled for demolition in Berlin, was offered by the German Ministry of Defense in 2007 and now stands as a “virtual urban lighthouse” for the new environmental era.
Who needs an expensive restaurant? If you can, get your oysters directly from a nursery, such as the one in this tiny port of Mesquer, Brittany.
You’ll never get bored of oysters. Like wine, each family has its own fingerprint, such as these Marennes-Oléron oysters, known for their smooth flavor and their serpentine coloring and texture.
At low tide locals flock to la Bernerie searching for tasty clams (palourdes). As true fishing gentry, we have a strict code of ethics that tourists rarely follow: don’t disturb the native oyster nurseries! The goal is to both preserve the ecosystem and protect local farmers who must apply for strictly regulated maritime easements.
And speaking of palourdes, like escargots, they taste great prepared with butter, parsley, garlic, and bread crumbs!
Sushi à la française! A simple dish of scallops, slightly macerated with Muscadet and served as an apéritif.
My grandmother taught us arts de la table or the science of displaying your dish in the proper refined fashion. This is how we display langoustines (which are like crayfish but fleshier and adapted to salt water). Mayonnaise not pictured - mmm!
Not a fan of seafood? No worries, Brittany is also the homeland of crêpes (sweet pancakes) and galettes (salty buckwheat pancakes)! You’ll find crêperies on every corner in Nantes. Here is a classic version for a true Breton: a galette complète (egg / cheese / ham / butter) and a cup of dry Normand cider.
Why diet? After a long coastal hike, we’re enjoying a salubrious maritime version of a galette: salmon, clams, mussels, and scallops.
Jalapeño Butter? Well, this is served at the best crêperie in Nantes (our secret). Young, talented chefs are now reinterpreting and deconstructing this traditional dish, lifting what had been an inexpensive, nourishing peasant staple into a true culinary experience.
François-Frédéric Lemot, Napoleon’s architect, purchased Clisson, then an anonymous river town just outside of Nantes that had been ravaged by war and fire, to build a Tuscan-style mansion (along with an accompanying neo-Italianate village) with full view of the medieval castle that he would spend his retirement converting into a picturesque romantic ruin.
Meditative walk through the mansion’s gardens, also designed by the aforementioned Lemot.
Clisson, is not only the epicenter of the Muscadet wine growing region, it’s also the reified vision of Lemot’s ideal romantic landscape.
