Arriving to Nantes

When you arrive to Nantes, there are a few things you will have to do and it will better if you have listen about them before.

Arriving to the Ecole des Mines de Nantes

It is not easy if you try to do it alone (and worst if you don't speak french at all). There are three ways to arrive to Nantes and then to the Ecole des Mines de Nantes:

You arrive by car
You arrive at the train station.
You arrive at the Nantes Airport.

You are lucky if you are planning the alternative 1. You can go to this site and plan your trip from anywhere in Europe using the address of the school:

Ecole des Mines de Nantes
4, rue Alfred Kastler
F - 44307 Nantes cedex 3
France
Whenever you are between the alternatives 2 or 3, I should advise you to ask someone of the Ecole to pick you up. If you do so, you will find no further problem. Otherwise, you should print this page, and continue reading it.

If you are reading this, then there is nobody to pick you up and you should make your way towards the Ecole by your self. So, let see what you can do:

Arriving at the train station

You will arrive to the "Gare SNCF du nord". From the train station until the Ecole you may not walk almost nothing. You may leave the train station through the gate north, and just in front of you it is the line 1 of the tram. As usual it has only two directions. You should take the direction "Beaujoire", which is the last station, so people will ask you to get out at that station. If you arrive at this station you have made half of the travel. Lets go to the second half.

You have descended from the tram and in your back you may see some bus stations (there are several all together, and you may also see a stadium) with large numbers such as 72, 22, 76, etc. These numbers are also written with the direction of the bus (buses also have two directions). You may wait at bus stop which says: 72 vers GACHET. The direction is so Gachet (wow!). In the same bus stop you may find the schedule of the Bus. You can take the bus 72 and ATTENTION to the direction: the bus must says GACHET. you can also take the bus 76 and ATTENTION to the direction: CHARBONEAU. Get down in the station called Christian Pauc. You have arrived! Look around and you will see the very well known building of the Ecole des Mines.

Anyway, in order to be logged at the Ecole des Mines, you are expected to arrive at 17:00, and no later, in working days. Traveling from Paris Nantes take around of 2 hours. If you arrive too late, I suggest you to go to a Hotel near to the train station.

Arriving from nantes' airport

You can take a taxi from the airport to EMN, it will cost you more or less 30 euros. If you don't want to do that you can take the bus from the airport to downtown, it will cost you 6 euros, you have to get down at "Comerce" station, from there you can take the tram and follow the instructions showed in the "Arriving at the train station" section. Note that you only have to buy one ticket for the airport bus. The tickets for normal transportation in nantes cost only 1 euro. Ryanair a very popular low fares airline is now flying to nantes.

Carte 12-25

There is a special card called "12-25" that has been done specially for people in this range of age offered by the SNCF. It costs about 49 euros and allows you to obtain discounts in all trains of the SNCF from 25% up to 50%. To get the card, you just need to present your self in any SNCF station and with a face picture and any identity card. Visit their web page.