Regattas, open-air cafés and carnival

Bathers in the Loire at Trentemoult, around 1900.
Unknown author, around 1900 – public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From the 1880s, people from Nantes crossed for the regattas, a swim at Beau-Rivage, the open-air cafés and the galettes. The sailing club (CNSL) has kept the regattas going since 1990.

From 1946 to 1961 the Soulas family workshop, rue Raymond-Soulas, built prize-winning floats for the Nantes carnival (Les Amants de Venise, Violette impériale…). Six to twelve months of work per float, hundreds of costumes sewn by hand. In 1958 Mireille Josephau, a young woman from Rezé, was elected mid-Lent queen – a story that would inspire the film La Reine Blanche. Today the Fanfaronnades keep that spirit alive.

The beach at Beaurivage

From the 1920s until after the war, a sandy beach drew people from Nantes, especially from Chantenay, who came by Roquio. Cabins and swimming costumes were for hire, and an open-air café served crêpes and drinks, with a dance floor. After the war, children dived from the wreck of a boat scuttled by the Germans. A former swimmer, born in 1942, remembers the Sundays of his childhood: tram, Roquio, picnic, a galette and lemonade on the quay, a seaside feeling for families who could not go further. But the river stayed dangerous: mud, currents, wrecks from the 1943-1944 bombings. On the flood land, osier beds grew and were cut in winter. Before the war, another beach lay near the sand pit, towards today’s Pendule.

The 2001 treasure hunt

33 plaques engraved by residents, coded by material (brick = plants, metal = boats, ceramic = festivals…). Can you still find them?

Sources: Rezé Histoire no. 97 (April 2026), “3 walks to understand Trentemoult”, Rezé Histoire association – rezehistoire.fr. Texts rewritten by trentemoult.com; for more, get the magazine.