This is the outside of the castle in the city of Nantes. It even has a moat around it and everything.
And here's what the castle living space looks like on the inside. I could totally see having a huge gala here and having all the fancy cars (or buggies) out in front dropping people off.
And the huge well out front. Grated now, so no one falls in I suppose.
Turns out the city has done a nice job of turning the old castle into a museum that tells you all about the history of Nantes from sometime before 1000 AD up until recent times, including plans for the future. Most of the museum was too recent for my liking but the older stuff was fun.
This picture above is from a movie they showed about Anne de Bretagne. I was excited when I found out they were finally going to tell me who in the world she was. Her name seems to pop up all over the place, from cookies, to deserts, to street names. I figured she had to be important but I didn't know anything about her.
It turns out that she was the queen of Brittany, back before Brittany became part of France. To help save her country she married the King of France at the time and made sure to put important protections for the Bretons in place so that they'd be safe and left alone. Once the King died Anne married the next King to make sure that her country would continue to be safe. Anne was the only woman in history to be crowned queen twice. The story makes her sound a lot like Guinevere from the Arthurian legends, who did everything she possibly could to make sure that her people were well taken care of politically.
This castle was also used to hold important political prisoners. Some of these prisoners left graffiti on the wall during their stays, some of which you can see here.
The museum also had a bunch of multimedia terminals showing parts of the history. This is a model of the entire city of Nantes as it was back in the 1300s I think. The little display shows you where all the important parts of the city are. All of which seem to have been destroyed in the middle 1800s.
