Passage Pommeraye

The Passage Pommeraye is a covered shopping arcade in the centre of Nantes, and it is one of the most elegant in France. It was built between 1840 and 1843 for Louis Pommeraye, a businessman, with the architect Jean-Baptiste Buron, and it opened at a time when glass-roofed arcades were fashionable in Paris and other European cities. Its purpose was practical as well as decorative. Nantes had a steep slope between the lower town near the river and the higher streets, and the passage linked Rue de la Fosse with Rue de Santeuil, giving shoppers a sheltered route up and down the hill.

The arcade is built on three levels and gets round a difference in height of about nine metres by means of a broad staircase in the middle, which is the architectural centrepiece. The stair is made of stone and cast iron, with a balustrade and statues, and it is lit from above by a glass roof supported by an iron frame. The façades on both sides are decorated with pilasters, carved ornament and statues in niches in a style often described as Renaissance revival, which was popular in the 1840s. Gas lamps, mouldings and wrought-iron balconies add to the impression of an opera set. Each side has shopfronts on two or three levels, with boutiques and small businesses occupying them today.

The passage has long attracted writers and film-makers. The director Jacques Demy, who grew up in Nantes, shot his first feature film, Lola, here in 1961, and the arcade appears in the films of other directors too. The Nantes writer Julien Gracq described the passage in his memoirs of the city, and a visit to it helps to bring out the atmosphere of nineteenth-century Nantes, a rich port town where merchants were eager to display their taste.

The arcade is open daily, usually from early morning until evening, and entry is free. A visit takes twenty to forty minutes, enough to walk up and down, look at the windows and the ceiling, and perhaps stop for a coffee. The light is best in the middle of the day, when the sun comes through the glass roof, and it is quiet on weekday mornings.

The passage is within a few minutes' walk of Place Royale, with its fountain, and of the Place Graslin, where the Grand Théâtre stands. From here you can walk to the Château des Ducs de Bretagne and the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul, or take the tram to the Île de Nantes, where the Machines de l'île and the Grand Éléphant are the city's most unusual attractions. The passage suits architecture lovers, shoppers and film fans.