Living in Europe allows us the option to check out cities that wouldn’t otherwise be on our “must-see” lists. When you are making cross-continental trips to visit Europe, you’re focused on the major cities and highlights, as you should be, but living here allows a little more time to see the smaller, lesser known spots as well. Nancy France happens to be one of those spots!
On the way home from a trip to Dijon, my friends and I made a small detour to check out Nancy after hearing about a gorgeous city square in the center of the city. “Place Stannislas” is well worth the stop with its stunning gold and wrought-iron details, arches, and beautiful fountains (even if they were frozen on our stop). Most of the major “tourist sights” in the city are central to its location, making it perfect to compress all of one city into a few short hours. You can see the museum, opera, arch, park, and grand hotels from the center of the square. Walk just a bit farther on either side and you’ll end up in one of two main city cathedrals.
A walk down some of the side streets takes you to every food option you could want, especially a lot of more ethnic foods. After a weekend eating French food, we opted for some Indian!
There is some really cool street art hidden throughout the city. We saw a ton driving in but I was never quick enough to catch a good photo (although there may be some in my insta-story highlights on instagram)! I snapped a couple cool ones though that you can see below!
In 1831, this bronze statue of Stanisłas was placed in the middle of the square; since then it has been known as the “Place Stanislas”.
How to find your next “two-hour city”
- Get on Google Maps
- We only found Nancy by looking along the route we were taking! Don’t be afraid to zoom out and read the city names along the way
- Pick One Thing to do
- You can’t pick a drive-by city and try to hit multiple spots. You should find parking closest to your top priority (like a square, cathedral, or castle) and then walk outwards from there as time allows
- Plan for a Meal
- You have to eat anyways, so why not justify seeing another city with a meal as well? We planned this trip around a late lunch so we didn’t feel like it was adding too much time to the trip
- Just pick somewhere
- As long as it is somewhere new, I want to see it so I could never be disappointed with checking another location off of my list, just think of every city as a new experience to check off yours!
Happy Planning!
Xx
Kali