Saint nazaire, a town by the sea

Saint-Nazaire's Church (street of General de Gaulle), the Grand Café held by the father of Aristide Briand since 1864 (place Quat'z Horloges), the ancient railway park who goes back to 1857 (street of the Pereire Brothers), the Galerie des Franciscains (Croisic street) or the beautiful middle-class houses and private mansions dating from the 1880 (Wilson boulevard, street Villebois-Mareuil) are among the rare vestiges of this prosperous city which had passed, between 1850 and 1900, from 600 to 30 000 inhabitants.

The S637 submarine Espadon was built in 1957 by the Augustin Normand shipyards in Le Havre, launched in 1958 and declared "fit for active service" on the 1st of April 1960. Today, the public is welcomed on board for a tour of the submarine's passageways.

Very different from a traditional museum, Escal'Atlantic simulates a real voyage on an ocean liner. Opened in Spring 2000, Escal'Atlantic is an invitation to cruise through the history and legends of the great ocean liners.

Located in two compartments of the former submarine base and covering 3,500 m2, this exhibition-experience is the flagship facility for the new tourist attraction of the port of Saint-Nazaire.

The goal of the Ecomusée [Maritime Museum] is to study, protect and promote the different aspects of Saint-Nazaire's heritage. Based on the building of collections of objects and documents, it designs and mounts exhibitions, organises conferences and discussions on technical and scientific subjects, and collaborates with local schools and colleges on educational projects. The documentation centre contains written, photographic and audio-visual materials: its database enables visitors to find any further information they require.

One of Brittany's most important megalithic sites The hilltop at Dissignac encloses one of the finest megalithic monuments in France: a tumulus composed of two burial chambers open to the rising sun of the winter solstice, which was built in about 4000 BC, even before the Egyptian pyramids.

A day on the Saint-Marc beach, the most popular of all. Immortalised on film in "Mr Hulot's Holiday" by Jacques Tati, this beach is overlooked by a wooden belvedere, on which a statue of the film-maker keeps watch forever, his eyes fixed on the sea?

At nightfall the port comes alive, lit by a thousand fires offering a dance of shadows, lights and colors as imagined by Yann Kersalé. The opening and closing of locks and bridges, ships entering and leaving, cranes and trucks loading and unloading, the dockers coming and going... The docks by night is a concert conducted by the life of the harbor itself.

Nantes to Saint Nazaire

See on www.estuaire.fr