Angers Heritage Days attracted about 100,000 persons

Les Journées du patrimoine ont attiré quelques 100 000 visiteurs à Angers et alentours. La participation a été stable. Les principaux monuments angevins sont restés très prisés. Mais de nouvelles places ouvertes au public devront encore faire des efforts pour être attractives.

In spite of a rather autumnal weather on Angers, the Heritage days of September 20 and 21 have recorded a stable attendance in the city and surroundings with a common theme : natural heritage - cultural heritage. The Angers castle was, once again the most visited of the town monuments maybe because that one played the ecological card with the settlements of gardens on the ramparts. 

The Maine et Loire préfecture also opened its garden, for long totally hidden to the passer-by. Maybe because of the works of the new building of the Conseil général, those gardens were not in their best appearance : the paths were rather damaged and the scarcity of financial resources is outside, but also inside the state building, visible. If several private mansions were opened to the public, some of them are rather uninteresting given their bad architectural conditions... 

But it is above all the museum of natural history which made a hit : the number of visitors was three times more important than the previous edition.That facility hosts since a few weeks a permanent exhibition "The human zoo" about the exhibitions, in Angers, of people coming from Africa, Asia and America in order to be exposed at the sight of European people believing they were upper. The Ronceray Abbey and the Grand théâtre were some of the most visited.

More than 70,000 people in Angers and 24,000 outside the city took part to the event.