A Day in Angers

While in Nantes, it’s super fun to take advantage of the relatively cheap flights all around Europe and spend a few days in Spain, Portugal, or Italy. This article is about none of that. 

The trains in France, specifically in the Loire-Atlantique Region, allow you to visit the quaintest little towns and villages in under an hour. Not every weekend has to be a whirlwind tour of a whole other country. It’s better to take it easy sometimes, and explore all of the amazing sights that you can access with a cheap train ticket. 

Angers (Ahn-jay) is a city 40-minutes away from Nantes by train, to the northwest. If you take the train from Paris, you actually go through Angers on your way to Nantes. Depending on the demand for tickets and the time you go, you can get tickets to Angers for $13. Not a bad deal at all. 

I was oblivious to the attractions in Angers until my friend Henry proposed a day trip over the weekend to visit the city. His plan: to see the medieval tapestries housed in the Chateau d’Angers. These tapestries from the Middle Ages depict the Apocalypse as described in Revelations from the Bible, so I was intrigued. They were also housed in a castle, which I can never say no to. 

After a short ride through the misty Loire countryside, we arrived in Angers. As we headed through the quaint, labyrinthine cobblestone streets of Angers, we came upon a square filled with tents and tables, selling antiques and trinkets. Henry and perused the wares, window shopping sans windows. We followed the stalls down another street, and then arrived at the main thoroughfare, filled with vendors and people milling about. There was everything from old books to vintage posters and clothes. It was one of the biggest open-air markets I’ve ever been to, and it happens every first Sunday of the month in Angers. Stalls stretched as far as the eye could see, and I wanted to examine each one despite the freezing cold that numbed my fingers and made me feel as though I was walking on two big ice cubes. 

Henry and I spent so much time wandering around the market, even visiting an art studio doing an open house and talking with the artists about their work. It was super cool, but it was absolutely frigid out and we needed a break. So we continued our journey towards the castle.

Exiting the maze of small streets through Anger’s old town, the castle cuts an imposing figure, with a large dry moat surrounding soaring stone walls. It used to be the capital of its own political entity, and served at one point in time as the capital of the French kingdom. All of this means that this castle has been used for centuries by different dukes, viscounts and kings as a fortress and administrative center.

At the gates, volunteers were passing out tickets, as entry is free on the first Sunday of November, December, January, February and March. We were able to walk right into the building housing medieval tapestries without paying a cent. The scenes in the tapestries were fascinating, and the exhibit explained the story behind them and how they were made, which I found super interesting. 

After that, Henry and I wandered around the castle, taking in the fabulous views of Angers from the commanding position that the castle held on a hill overlooking the Mayette river. Despite the clouds, the views were breathtaking and we listened to the bells of the cathedral toll mass while the wind whipped over the parapet, cutting through my jacket as if it wasn’t there at all. Early February in Angers is no joke. 

After the castle, we got galettes, one of the cultural dishes of the Bretagne region. The restaurant cooked them up fresh and we sat in the warmth of the building looking out on Anger’s old town, which included wooden buildings from the middle ages, decorated with ornate carvings of different demons, people, and symbols. 

We wandered through the twisting cobblestone streets of the city for the rest of the afternoon, simply enjoying the city and the pedestrians that filled it. We ate dinner at a Bouillon, a classic style of French restaurant that had reasonably priced dinner options right across from the train station. After that, we were ready to go home, but our train didn’t leave for another two hours. This is where some foresight as to how tired we would be would have come in handy. I suggest being realistic and buying train tickets back to Nantes earlier than 8pm, because depending on the activities you do you’ll be completely exhausted. You won’t really want to do anything and might, like me and Henry, end up sitting on the floor of the train station waiting to go back home. Moral of the story: be realistic about the weather and your energy levels. 

Angers is a fantastic city with world-class tapestries and some of the most well-preserved medieval buildings in France, and it's a cheap 45-minute train ride from Nantes. The region around Nantes is full of little gems like Angers that you can find if you look. Don’t think that travel during study abroad has to be to a different country for a whole week. Day trips can be just as fun and will definitely be more affordable.