Nantes · Self-guided audio walk

From Cliff Top to Quarry Floor

Start above the Loire beside Jules Verne, step out over the cliff on a wooden walkway, then follow a workers' stair down into a tropical garden with a 25-metre waterfall and finish with a pint at the bottom.

7Stops
2.5 kmDistance
40+ minTime

Photo by GO69 on Wikimedia Commons

This walk starts on the top of the Butte Sainte-Anne, where the Loire spreads out below the Esplanade Jean Bruneau and two bronzes keep Jules Verne company. Then it drops, gently at first, over the cliff and into the ground that made this corner of Nantes.

The Belvédère de l'Hermitage carries you out over the old Miséry quarry on a wooden walkway, 20 metres above the void. From there you cross the former convent grounds of the Parc des Oblates and take the Escalier de Lusançay, the steep stair factory workers took down to the brewery in the quarry.

At the bottom, the quarry has become the Jardin extraordinaire, a tropical garden with a 25-metre waterfall. The descent ends at Little Atlantique Brewery, a former oil mill where the beer is brewed on site. Allow at least two hours, and stay off the closed riverside quays.

Hear it on the street

Get the turn-by-turn audio guide in the app. The narration plays itself as you reach each stop, hands-free and offline.

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Stop by stop

The route

Interactive map of the route. The full stop list below works without it.

Local pick

Photo by Thanh Ly on Unsplash

Esplanade Jean Bruneau

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Two bronzes of Jules Verne and Captain Nemo above the Loire.

You're standing on the Esplanade Jean Bruneau, named for a Nantes painter, on top of the Butte Sainte-Anne. Below you the Loire runs wide and grey toward the Atlantic, and the Île de Nantes lies directly across the water. Look for the two bronzes by Élisabeth Cibot, cast in 2005. One shows Jules Verne as a boy, the other shows Captain Nemo, who commands the Nautilus.

Verne was born a short walk from here, and the museum that carries his name waits behind you. This hilltop is the edge of a granite cliff, and the ground drops away fast. Workers once cut stone from the face you are about to descend into, a pit called the Miséry quarry. That scar in the rock is the whole reason for this walk.

From here you see the city and the river. In an hour you will stand at the bottom of the hole that helped build part of it.

Open in Google Maps

≈2 min walk to the next stop

Must see

Photo by Jibi44 on Wikimedia Commons

Musée Jules Verne

0:00

A small museum devoted to the writer, above the river.

The Musée Jules Verne fills a handsome house at 3 rue de l'Hermitage, perched on the cliff line. Jules Verne was born in Nantes, and this small museum is devoted to the writer and the worlds he invented. It opened in 1978, and its rooms hold manuscripts, books, posters, models and objects tied to his life and work. The building is part of the show, its windows looking straight out over the Loire, the river his heroes keep leaving and coming back to.

Entry costs three euros, so it is an easy stop. Before you plan around it, know its rhythm. It stays closed on Tuesdays for most of the year, and on most days it opens at two in the afternoon; from early July through the end of August it opens daily. If the doors are shut, the view from the esplanade costs nothing, and the walk continues down the cliff.

Open in Google Maps

≈2 min walk to the next stop

Local pick

Photo by dalbera on Openverse

Belvédère de l'Hermitage

0:00

A wooden catwalk out over the quarry, twenty metres up.

The Belvédère de l'Hermitage is the cliff made walkable. In 2019 the Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata built this 36-metre wooden walkway, 2.8 metres wide, free to enter and open every day from nine thirty. You start between high wooden walls, your view narrowed to a strip of sky and river. Then the walls end, and the walkway keeps going, its last 10 metres cantilevered about 20 metres above the ground, with nothing under you but the drop into the quarry.

That is the point. Look down and you see the old Miséry pit, the green garden beginning to take it back, and the Loire beyond. Look west and you can pick out the next stretch of the walk: the hilltop park you will cross, then the stair the factory workers used. Do not rush this.

The view over Nantes from a plank over the cliff is the reason people climb up here in the first place.

Open in Google Maps

≈9 min walk to the next stop

Free preview ends here · stops 4 to 7 continue in the app

Parc des Oblates

Three hectares of former convent grounds on the hilltop.

in app

Escalier de Lusançay

The workers' old stair down into the quarry.

in app

Jardin extraordinaire

A tropical garden with a 25-metre waterfall in the old quarry.

in app

Little Atlantique Brewery

A pint in a former oil mill by the river.

in app

Good to know

Before you go

Is the From Cliff Top to Quarry Floor walk free?

Your first tour is free, no account needed. After that you can buy tours one at a time, or subscribe for access to every city. Cancel whenever you want.

How far is it, and how long does it take?

The route runs 2.5 km across 7 stops and takes 40+ min at an easy pace. That covers the walking and the audio. How long you linger at each stop is up to you.

When should I start?

Any time of day works. You can pause at any stop and pick the route back up later, so there is no need to finish it in one go.

Does the audio work offline?

Yes. Download the walk over Wi-Fi before you set out and the audio, map, and directions all run offline. Handy for skipping roaming charges abroad.

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Provenance · last verified August 27, 2026

Built from the Wayside route itself: the stops, their order, and the walk between them.

Photo by GO69 on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by Thanh Ly on Unsplash

Photo by Jibi44 on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.5

Photo by dalbera on Openverse · CC BY 2.0

Photo by Fab5669 on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash

Photo by Clément Beckert on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Jibi44 on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Eusebius on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 3.0

Photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash

Photo by François de Dijon on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0