Nantes in 3 days

Three separately ticketed experiences: the elephant ride, the Carousel where children steer giant sea creatures, and the Gallery where machinists run the prototypes live.

Eighteen steel rings along 400 metres of the Loire, by Daniel Buren and Patrick Bouchain in 2007, lit red, green and blue after dark.

A riverside village across the Loire, best explored without a map through lanes sometimes a metre wide, past façades painted by the residents themselves.

An 1843 covered arcade whose real show is the central staircase, with statues of children representing trades that you only notice when you look up.

The white tufa fortress where Anne of Brittany was born; its courtyard, moat and 500 metres of rampart walk are free to enter all year.

The old LU biscuit factory, now a bookshop, hammam and bar under bare girders, with a gilded tower that opens only occasionally for its view.

Seven centuries of painting, from Georges de La Tour to Kandinsky, in a 1900 palace reopened in 2017 with a translucent extension by Stanton Williams.

A botanical garden opposite the station, where children head for the giant wooden chick and the sad-faced bench, leaving the glasshouses and shaded valley quiet.