Social events

Welcome reception at Work in Salorges

The welcome reception will take place in the Wave room at Work in Salorges. The place is easily reachable with tramway line 1.

The cocktail starts at 7:30PM.

See the access plan here.

Visit of the city center

Nantes has a rich cultural life. Each year, Nantes welcomes artists that install ephemeral or permanent art structure.
Nantes city center became with the time an open air museum with art installation hidden in unexpected parts of the city.

To link these arts installations the Voyage à Nantes painted a green line on the ground.

In this guided tour of the historic city center, you will follow the green line and see historic monuments, important cultural places and open-air art.

Visit starts at 2:00PM in front of Nantes tourist office, Nantes Tourisme - 9 rue des Etats, 44000 Nantes, Google map link.
Please be there at least 15 minutes before the start of the tour.

Visite of the Machines de l’Île

The Machines de L’Île is an art project located in old shipyard of Nantes. It built several large scale mechanical animals, the most iconic being a 12 meters hight mechanical elephant.

Machine de l’Île find their inspiration in Jules Verne and the steampunk movement. Their machines are made of wood and metal with hydraulic pistons for mechanical parts.

With this tour you will visit the Galeries, a place where you can see these mechanical beasts from the initial drawings to their final form.

Visit starts at 2:00PM, the gathering point is under the nefs in the island of Nantes, Google map link. Please be there at least 15 minutes before the start of the visit.

Visit is in French but you can download a mobile app to get audio guide and descriptions in english, spanish, german or italian.

Android application
iOS application

Gala dinner at Château de Goulaine

Château de Goulaine is part of the Châteaux of the Loire Valley and is located in the south of Nantes.

Aerial view of the château by Valéry Joncheray

The first castle de Goulaine was built in the 12th century, however very few remains are still visible today. The castle we see today was built in the 15th during the renaissance on top of the old medieval castle.

Before the gala dinner you will have free time to explore public parts of the castle. After the visit we will have a cocktail outside in the inner court followed by a dinner inside the main building.

The bus leaves at 17h30 from the Cité des Congrès. We will meet in front of Cité des Congrès at 17h20.
The bus will bring us back to Cité des Congrès around midnight after the dinner.