Nancy is one small French city in the region of Lorraine.
Lorraine have borders with Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. If you are not familiar with Lorraine, its history and heritages, you maybe have heard about the marvelous delicious quiche lorraine. The food in France usually is very good and in Lorraine it’s not an exception. They have some great salt and sweet food.
Nowadays Lorraine’s capital is Metz, but in the past when it was a duchy, Nancy was the central city. The remaints of that period can be seen in the central area of the city, being place Stanislas the main spot of it.
Stanislaw Leszczynski, known as Stanislas, was a king of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwelth. His daughter Maria married to the French king Louis XV and after the loss of the throne he became duke of Lorraine. This fact produced a rich heritage and development to the city. Later the city had the development of coal mining industry and recently decadence with services becoming the main economical activity.
If you never heard about quiche Lorraine or Stanislas, Nancy is known also for one of the most famous French man: Michel Platini. Considered the best French football player he borned in Joeuf, Lorraine, but started to make history playing for the local team AS Nancy from 1972-1979.
Due to the many universities and colleges located in Nancy it is considered a student city, but beside all these features Nancy is also known for the Ecole de Nancy, an Art Nouveau style movement made by artists and architects that influenced the production of furniture, glassware and decorative arts, but can be seen nowadays mainly by architecture.
To get to know the École de Nancy you can start visiting the museum of the Ecole de Nancy, a 1909 house of one of the supporters of the movement.
From there the best way is simply walking around in the city of Nancy. When you less expect you see a house from 1895 with a very peculiar architecture. They are spread over the city with some areas concentrating more exemplaries of the Ecole de Nancy architecture.
And the most impressive is the fact that people are still leaving in these houses. A very peculiar architecture, buildings from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century just like another regular house. Nancy is the city where people live in museums. Historical buildings with more than 100 years old.
