Musée de la Marine, History museum in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, France
The Musée de la Marine is a history museum housed in an 1861 fort in Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, on the banks of the Loire river. It holds ship models, period documents, and objects covering four centuries of French naval history, with one room that changes its display every year.
The fort was built in 1861 under Napoleon III to watch over the mouth of the Loire river. The museum opened inside it in 1983, run since then by a team of volunteers who have built up its collections over the decades.
The museum sits inside an old fort that faces the Loire river, and from its walls you can see the bridge to Saint-Nazaire across the water. The stone rooms with their arched ceilings give the building a strong character that frames the ship models and documents on display.
The museum is open daily except Mondays from early June to early October, and opening hours vary by season, so it is worth checking ahead. Bike paths along the Loire lead directly to the fort, and the building has accessible paths and toilets for visitors with mobility difficulties.
One of the most striking objects in the collection is a model of the Béarn, France's first aircraft carrier, launched in 1927 and featured in the current exhibition. Several ship models on display, including the Hermione, were made by a single modelmaker named Jacky Athimon, and the Hermione alone took around 800 hours to build.
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