Mammoth memories made in the city of Nantes in Western France

Anna O’Donoghue samples sun, sea and castles and the odd mechanical elephant on her visit to Nantes, and discovers how the Loire Valley’s cultural capital comes into full bloom in the summer months.

Before we begin, I’m not going to let you make the same mistake I did — welcome to Nantes, pronounced naw-t and not nan-taze as my thick Kerry accent had me to believe.

Nantes (naw-t, there you have it) is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, 50 km from the Atlantic coast.