Mick and I were mesmerised by Nancy – it is a beautiful city. The gorgeous weather we had for the few days we were there helped I’m sure. We think it is the cleanest old European city we have ever visited. It seemed to us that many of the locals were quite affluent.

Nancy was the centre of the Duchy of Lorraine going back centuries, and members of this rich family invested in making Nancy a beautiful city over many many years. This photo shows part of the Place Stanislas – considered to be one of the most beautiful royal places in Europe, and recognised by UNESCO.

The statue is of Stanislas – the father-in-law of the King Louis XV. It stands in front of the Hôtel de Ville (or City Hall). Stanislas had this square built in the 18th Century to link the old city (which dates back to the 11th Century) to the new city (which dates back to the 16th century).

There are fountains in two of the corners of this square, heavily decorated by gold-embossed wrought iron railings, which complement other gold-embossed details in other parts of the square. I was happy to snap the little girl blowing bubbles in front of one of the fountains.

Depending on the time of day we visited this square (and we visited it often as we stayed in an apartment about 300m away), there would either be hundreds of people or a handful. But never once did we feel overcrowded there, or in fact anywhere in Nancy.

On our first morning in Nancy, we visited the Musée des Beaux-Arts – which is located in one of the beautiful buildings in a corner of the Place Stanislas. And, as you can see, there were very few people around at 10.00am (top left photo).

We spent two hours wandering through the Musée (to the left) enjoying most of the art on offer. Both Mick and I are not really students of ‘modern conceptual, bits-and-pieces-of-rubbish art’, so we skipped that section.

We did however find a new favourite artist, Émile Friant, who spent time living and working in Nancy in the late 19th Century.

There were many of his works on display, most of them were very detailed, life-like portraits. A bit further on, in a different section of the large museum, we found these huge works by him as well.

Opposite the statue of Stanislas stands an arc de triomphe, or Héré Arch, which links the Place Stanislas with Place de la Carrière. It is a copy of an arch in Rome, and not of the closely named Arc de Triomphe.

Through the arch was a magnificent street with a centre walkway covered by leafy trees. Every where we looked around this square we found something beautiful to admire.

 

Close by also was huge green space – 21 hectares of  parkland. We wandered through only a fraction of it!

Although, I went for a walk there one afternoon and discovered small parks within the park, fair grounds and play grounds and even a very very sad little zoo, complete with two sadder-looking monkeys. See if you can spot them.

This photo below was taken from one of our apartment’s windows – showing the blend of the old and the new. The new being the tram stop in front of Crédit Lyonnais.

Inside this (bank) building is Nancy’s most beautiful art nouveau work in stained glass – a 2700 square foot bright and airy glass roof. It was stunning. I guess it would be a nice place to work.

Mick and I visited the local markets, of course. They were held in a permanent hall, with everything undercover and everything sparkling clean and beautifully displayed. Mick had been ‘pining’ for a fillet steak, and he found just what he was looking for there. We could see similarities to the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne in terms of its layout and some of its offerings, the only thing missing was the crowd.

Mick was interested to see the canal that runs through Nancy – it is actually only just over 10Km in length and links with other canal networks in France. It has 18 locks.

We are very glad we were able to spend some time in Nancy.

And now we are heading to our next adventure. We meet our (next) hosts this afternoon and will spend the evening with them before they head off on a three-week camper van holiday.