schiller-wine: Guided Tour of Old Town Nantes - Loire Valley 2025 by ombiasy WineTours

Saturday, November 1, 2025

Guided Tour of Old Town Nantes - Loire Valley 2025 by ombiasy WineTours

The Loire Tour 2025 by ombiasy WineTours took place from Sunday, October 5 to Thursday, October 16, 2025. The tour started in Nantes and ended in Sancerre, with a bus transfer and lunch in Paris. There were 9 of us including Annette and myself.

Loire Valley 2025 by ombiasy WineTours started in the afternoon with a 1-hour overview presentation by Annette, followed by a Guided Tour of Old Town Nantes.

Loire 2025 by ombiasy WineTours led by Annette Schiller

Annette Schiller in her announcement: What comes to your mind when you hear ‘Loire Valley’? Of course images of glorious Châteaux pop up in your mind. Yes that is true and we will visit some iconic château and dig deep into France’s history. However, during this wine tour we also discover a magnificent, but often overlooked French wine region and one of the most exciting best kept secrets of excellent, high quality wines at very reasonable prices. The Loire Valley wine region is a vast area and consists of several distinct wine regions, each with its own characteristic grapes, appellations, and wine style. We take you on a journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Auvergne mountains to explore this unique region. We learn to appreciate “Sancerre”, "Pouilly-Fumé", “Vouvray", “Chinon”, as well as many other not so familiar appellations.

Oceania l’Hôtel de France

Oceania l’Hôtel de France in Nantes is a stately, 4-star true Nantes institution in an 18 th century mansion perfectly situated right in the city center in the pedestrian area next to the Opera House of Nantes. The hotel has recently been completely renovated and very tastefully combines old world charm with contemporary off-beat twist.

Guided Tour of Old Town Nantes

Today Nantes is France’s sixth largest city with a population of about 320.000 in Nantes proper and roughly 1 million in the metropolitan area. The ancient gallo-roman city of Namnetus, founded at a narrowing of the Loire and the confluence of the Erdre and Sèvre Nantaise, owes its rise to its extremely favorable geographical location.

Located at the mouth of the river, Nantes was not vulnerable to attacks from the sea and was considered one of the safest seaports when overseas trade began. Nantes took on the status of an industrial and commercial metropolis.

Nantes was conquered by the Bretons in 851 and was the capital of an independent Brittany for hundreds of years. In 1207 a fortress and château - the Château des Ducs de Bretagne - was built which served as the residence of the kings of Brittany and the center of the historical province of Brittany. In 1446 the last Duke of an independent Brittany François II rebuilt the castle and this is the architecture as we see it today.

After Brittany was annexed to France in 1532 - Anne of Brittany married the king of France - the Château des Ducs de Bretagne was used by the kings of France when they visited the region. After centuries of being the home to dukes and hosting kings and their courts, the castle, gradually abandoned, was put to use as both a barracks and a prison.

In 1915, the City of Nantes acquired the building and had a museum added in 1924. In Nantes a mile-stone of French history was written: in 1598 the “Edict of Nantes” was issued which legalized Protestantism to put an end to the religious wars and to unify France.