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This region includes Nantes and Le mans it is, 300 kilometres of Atlantic coastline, long sandy beaches, captivating bays and little islands like Yeu and Noirmoutier contrasting with the plush, green, countryside through which flows the magnificent Loire River.
This part of France has always been popular with kings and nobles, who built their elegant châteaux throughout the region. Many châteaux have been restored and are inhabited by their owners who open them to the public.
At Le Mans, the annual 24-Hour Car Race attracts visitors from all over the world. Traditional cities such as Angers, Saumur and Nantes provide castles, museums and picturesque winding, narrow streets where vacationers can lose themselves amid provincial markets and busy shops.
Nantes, the former capital of Brittany, is no longer officially part of the province: it was transferred to the Pays de la Loire in 1962 when the modern administrative regions were established. Nonetheless, such bureaucracy is not taken too seriously in a city whose history is so intimately bound up with Breton fortunes, and whose inhabitants still consider it to be an integral part of the province. A considerable medieval centre, it later achieved great wealth from colonial expeditions, the slave trade and shipbuilding - activities in turn surpassed by more recent industrial growth. Although much of the former provincial character of the city has been lost, thanks to such recent accretions as the tower blocks masking the Loire and motorways tearing past the city, it remains to its inhabitants an integral part of Brittany.
The Western Loire Valley is also a good place for cycling, hiring house-boats on the Loire tributaries or enjoying a typical candle-lit dinner on a comfortable modern excursion boat.
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