NANTES , the former capital of Brittany, is no longer officially part of the province: it was transferred to the Pays de la Loire in 1962 when the modern administrative regions were established. Nonetheless, such bureaucracy is not taken too seriously in a city whose history is so intimately bound up with Breton fortunes, and whose inhabitants still consider it to be an integral part of the province. A considerable medieval centre, it later achieved great wealth from colonial expedit... [More]