Nantes’ Natural History Museum has a fine setting in the city’s old mint, and has galleries for every branch of natural science: There are zoological, paleontological, mineralogical, ethnographical and a host of other collections from fields with long names, assembled since the 1700s.
The specimen guaranteed to turn heads is the fin whale skeleton in the zoology gallery, more than 18 metres in length and suspended from the ceiling.
The Vivarium, which was added in 1955, and was refurbished recently, has a set of terrariums with snakes and other exotic reptiles.
