I'm looking at taking a day trip from Strabourg to Nancy by train in September. I was wondering if anyone who has visited Nancy has an idea of how much time I should think about spending there. I understand everyone is different so what works for you might not work for me and vice versa, but I'm having trouble getting a sense of whether I should be planning a half-day or full day there. I've been to some places where after 2 hours you feel like you've walked every street worth seeing, others where I had to reluctantly leave at the end of the day. So if you could share your thoughts it would be appreciated!
I liked Nancy a lot. If you're a fan of art nouveau, you'll want to go to the related museum (Ecole de Nancy Museum), which could be a 2-hour visit. And it's not right downtown, so you either have quite a walk (with some nouveau and deco architecture along the way) or a bus ride. The tourist office has a map that identifies a lot of art nouveau buildings, some of which turn out to be multiple-block-long neighborhoods. You can spend quite a lot of time tracking them down. If you're interested in that stuff, a full day may not be long enough.
Beautiful city square. Tourist office was there.
We looked for the memorial to the US Soldiers who liberated the city in WWII but no one knew anything about it.
We spent 10 days in Nancy... It's a lovely, miniature Paris, IMO. Spend the entire day. Walk the town and study the architecture. Visit L'Ecole de Nancy. Enjoy lunch or dinner in the piazza, go to the zoo, walk the parks/river...
We actually liked it better than Strasbourg, even thought they are quite different. To us, Strasbourg was worth half a day...so if you disagree with that statement, you might not like Nancy. FYI