Saint-Herblain: Green Spaces, Gardens and Culture

Saint-Herblain combines green spaces with distinctive cultural venues. During your stay, you can focus on trails and parks as much as on live performances or historic architecture. The range of options can help you decide what to make the focus of your trip.

Green corridors, wetlands and circular trails

The Cours Hermeland forms a green-and-blue landscape corridor that crosses Saint-Herblain from north to south over a straight-line distance of 7 kilometres. Its developed, environmentally friendly routes are suitable for walking, running and cycling. The corridor offers a different way to explore the area than a single park: it runs through the municipality from north to south.

Opened in 2015, the Cours Hermeland green route offers a cycle ride through Saint-Herblain’s diverse natural environments. An accessible cycling route leads from Parc de la Savèze to Marais de la Pélousière. The Marais de la Pelousière wetland provides migratory, wintering and breeding grounds for numerous bird species. Several plant species also grow there that are considered notable because of their rarity.

The Circuit Hermeland is shaped like a figure eight and can be divided into two circular routes of 7 kilometres each. A path for pedestrians and cyclists also runs along the Circuit through former agricultural land that has been preserved and landscaped. On-site information boards and leaflets explain Saint-Herblain’s walking trails and introduce visitors to the local heritage, wildlife and plant life.

Parks and gardens

If you want to include play and picnic areas as well as trails, Parc de la Chézine offers both. The park also has a fitness trail and a fishing pond. Parc de la Gournerie offers a place to stroll, opportunities for walking and running, sports equipment, a pond and a château.

The Domaine de la Gournerie includes a château built in 1623 and extended in the 19th century. Its park, covering around 60 hectares, contains a conservation garden, two ponds and an educational garden. Around 30 remarkable trees of different species stand in Parc de la Gournerie. Along with opportunities for strolling, walking and running, the park therefore offers both distinctive natural features and activities.

Parc de la Carrière is a 22-hectare former sand and gravel extraction site that has been transformed into a recreational area. Pedestrians and cyclists can enter the park via Rue du Docteur-Boubée; walking and running are among the sports activities available there for free. One distinctive feature is the Jardin des plantes méditerranéennes, which contains 17,000 plants arranged in five areas with different themes.

Cultural venues and architecture

ONYX is a municipal theatre with 600 seats in the Atlantis district. Its programme includes dance, theatre, music and circus arts. Since 2020, ONYX has been a nationally recognised and subsidised venue for choreographic and circus arts; the theatre also hosts artist residencies. Zénith Nantes Métropole is an events venue with capacity for up to 8,500 spectators, including 6,800 seated. These capacity figures show two different scales of cultural events in Saint-Herblain.

The area’s heritage offers other points of interest: the Gothic church in Bourg dates from the 15th century, houses the relics of Saint Hermeland and is listed as a Monument historique. The Van Hanh Buddhist pagoda, inaugurated in 2008, is considered the first Buddhist pagoda of its kind in western France. It has a garden with a fountain, statues and Asian plant species.

The Longère de la Bégraisière adds to the cultural offer with themed and art exhibitions, creative and artistic workshops, and conferences. There are also discovery walks and trips into nature. This gives you a choice of different ways to shape your stay, from live performances, historic buildings and exhibitions to outdoor activities.

Discover more destinations: Le Landreau, Massérac, Saint-Gildas-des-Bois, Guenrouet, Petit-Mars, Remouillé, Mouzillon, Indre

For the overview of the wider region: Loire-Atlantique.