I've just come back from a wonderful and rather boozy weekend in Nantes. Olivia, whom I have known for more than ten years and has been my soul sister since, is there over the summer as part of her urbanism course and is, between bouts of panic, working on the rehabilitation of Nantes' grotty old industrial dock area and its conversion in to a cultural zone in town. I took a train friday afternoon with Gery, another old friend who is well on his way to becoming a lieutenant de police, and we arrived in Nantes around seven. Olivia's uncle and aunt's flat is near the station, a five minute walk from the beautiful medieval center of town.
Saturday was a terrific day. We emerged late having drunk and eaten our way through three courses at home the previous night, and ventured in to town around eleven. There is a cathedral and narrow little streets, as well as big shops in old 18th century buildings and a beautiful old gallery of shops made of glass and wrought iron. We ventured towards the Loire river, which link Nantes to St Nazaire and forms an estuary; the île de Nantes is where the old docks were, with large industrial warehouses and buildings from the late 19th. Today it is at the center of a massive urban renovation project, and the island is to be turned in to pole culturel, the challenge of which is to get businesses, artists' associations, public & private money, social housing and all things cultural all rub along together.
Over the summer there is a massive culturel event, Estuaire 2007, which provides free exhibitions, boat trips mixed with modern art sprinkled in the surroundings and the like. It is also Jules Verne year, so it is all rather bubbly and exciting.
As you cross the river from the center of town to the île de Nantes on the new footbridge, the first thing that looms is the new Palais de Justice, an enormous and rather imposing slab of a building that is all black metal and black glass. Around this it is obvious that the island is still a pretty big buiding site, with reconversions of huge old warehouses (I love the name Hangar des bananes, which is what it was until a few years ago), scrub land, holes in the ground, but also parts that are alreay done, with a couple of late 19th buidings thrown in. Intersting mix. In one such massive warehouse was an art exhibition.
Further in to the island we came across a carrousel which was full of non-cute rides for the kiddies: the mounts were the creatures dreamed up by Jules Verne, from the strange Nautilus fish to ostriches to strange mechanical bats. There was also a huge robotic elephant walking about, which people could ride on and squirted water at unsuspecting passers-by from time to time out of an incredible mechanical trunk.
One walks along the Loire on the edge of this island, on a wide pedestrian path past all the modern art coloured hoops designed by the chap who did the pillars at Palais Royal. Trendy cafés with terraces are aligned along this bit, and we decided it was time for an aperitif as the sun was coming out.
After Pastis and lunch and wine, we tottered to an art exhibition next door called Rouge baiser. It is again free and organised by the local regional contemporary art foundation. I thought a lot of it was tosh, especially the film of hands massaging plasticine, the square yard of paper coloured in lipstick (imaginitively called un mètre carré de rouge à lèvres), the video of a stoned looking guy explaining to the camera that getting up is so hard, a white shirt on a hanger. You get the idea- conceptual stuff, not sure I got it, and the accompanying blurb leaflet was just, well, pages of blurb.
Back in town we decided to prepare for our fish supper, having walked through a market that morning that showed us that fish and shellfish are readily available in Nantes, and more importantly cheap. We found a boulangerie, and asked our way through town to a poissonnerie. I went in to one shop wanting to buy local foodie stuff for Paris (Breton specialties it transpires, I didn't know some Breton regionalistes believe Nantes is breton), but the woman told me kindly that all she sold was touristy crap from the Sud Ouest and told me to go to the market. She then recommended a poissonnerie. This detail, and the fact that all cars stop for pedestrians, that the waiters take time to stop and joke and it's all very cute and charming made us look at house prices. Absurdly cheap relative to Paris it turns out...
At the poissonnerie we got two dozen oysters, pas laiteuses (not milky, which they are at this time of year when they reproduce), some small grey shrimp, a kilo of small langoustines and a crab. Bought vinegar, shallots, lemon and ingredients to make a perfect parsley potato salad. After we had dumped all this in the fridge back home, we sat down for a couple of glasses of Pastis, as it was time for Olivia's surprise exhibition. Five minutes away from the house, wedged between a canal and train track is the old LU biscuit factory, an old industrial monster that is now a bar, restaurant, concert hall, exhibition center.
Tucked at the back, in a massive room is an incredible installation- Ondulation by Thomas McIntosh. Imagine a big dark cinema in which you are in the front row. As well as the screen there is a long, wide, rectangular pool of water in front of you. The gurgling pool is lit up by different lights and colours, and there are three little ountains that rise and fall randomly. Robotic beepy sounds issue from the dark; at the same time ripples of light appear on the screen, ripples of the sounds we are hearing. The fact is that after a few seconds taking all this in in the dark, you sit down and just stare for as long as you can. The fact that the echoing sounds, the patterns on the screen and the ripples skimming on the lit-up water all go together provokes a synesthesia where the brain blurs the senses: you're watching the sound and listening to the light. A very incredible experience indeed.
After a beer in deckchairs ouside (apéritif time again) , enjoying the evening sun we went back for the shell orgy we had planned. Olivia tackled the crab, Gery expertly opened the oysters, I poured more drinks and made potato salad. By now we were all red from the sun and the pub crawl (disguised as a cultural tour of Nantes) and we had a fabulous evening.
Gery left the next day and after a stint at the market where I bought all things honey related (sweets, wine- mead?-, soap), Olivia and I went walkabout in the old city. On the main square, the middle of which is usually occupied by a massive central fountain made up of a tall bronze statue of a woman (Nantes it so happens, and she stands on figures reprensenting the rivers and its affluents), there is now rather ugly structure of scaffolding with a large portacabin at the top of some stairs. It would be possible to walk past and think it is some elaborate renovation of the statue, but on inspection it turns out it another modern art installation. you go up the stps and arrive in... a hotel room, complete with functioning bathroom and TV/ DVD player, all done up very stylishly with in its center, yup, the bloody fountain.
It's all the more incredible that you can stay there for 60 € a night. It's fully booked until they take it down.
Lunch of crepes and cider, then beers and pastis and a long afternoon girly chat as one does after a couple of months of not seeing each other properly. We returned to the Ondulation exhibition and chatted for hours over dinner. Feeling slightly hungover today (but why?) but had a fabulous weekend. D'la balle les mecs! On se refait ça...
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