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| This giant crab is a denizen of the lowest level of the three-level Carrousel des Mondes Marins at Machines de L'Ile in Nantes. |
The elephant at Les Machines de L'Ile somehow captured our (especially Jane's) imagination when we started planning our spring 2025 trip to Europe, so Nantes had to be included. A former shipyard has been turned into a fantastic mechanical wonderland, repurposing the materials and skills once used to build ships. As shipbuilding and other manufacturing declined in the mid-20th century, Nantes transitioned to a service ecnomy, but the bones of its past are still there. A gigantic yellow crane that once lifted ships is now a landmark and a symbol of the city, but it's Les Machines de L'Ile that is more than enough reason to visit what was once the busiest port in France (and responsible for a major portion of the French trade in slaves in the 1700s).
We arrived on an overcast Sunday afternoon after a 2,5-hour train ride from Paris. We stayed three nights at the stately Oceania Hotel de France at one corner of the Place Graslin, a square in the heart of Nantes. Overlooking the square is Nantes's 1788 Theatre Graslin, which is a Greek Revival theater and opera house. Unfortunately, we didn't get to go inside. Restaurants surround the square, most notably La Cigale, an extravagant art nouveau brasserie that opened in 1895. We had breakfast there every day and one dinner at which I had a perfect and generous serving of guinea fowl and Jane had dorado.
Another good meal in Nantes was just off Place Gaslin at Souris Agneau where we had wonderful lamb shanks accompained by fois gras and fig jam. Dessert was a nougat ice cream. This is not the place to worry about calories.
The real highlight of our visit, of course, was not culinary. It was the ride aboard the giant elephant at Les Machines de L'Ile. First we visited the Galerie des Machines, housed in a portion of a huge warehouse complex left over from the site's long history as a shipyard. Here the staff and volunteer visitors operate giant spiders, bugs, sloths, lizards and other mechanical creatures as the crowd goes from one area to another to watch different animals come alive. They say it's as if Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci collaborated on an amusement park.
Next we went out to ride on the giant elephant, climbing stairs to a bridge connected to an entrance in the side of the beast. You can sit inside in a parlor-like space or climb a spiral stairway to the covered platform on the elephant's back. It moves slowly (it's really on wheels although the legs move), with its trunk swinging and even ocassionally spraying water. When we were aboard it sprayed a group of high-schoolers who were taunting it.
After the elephant, we went to buy tickets for the Carrousel des Mondes Marins. We could have gotten on right away, but the ticket seller advised us to wait 40 minutes until after a large group of students had gotten off. There were about eight of us for our time on the carrousel, which is divided into three tiers: the bottom represents the sea floor and inhabitants like the giant squid; the middle represents the abysesses or ocean depths with a manta ray and hatchetfish; the top is the sea surface, with flying fish and a boat caught it a storm. Most of the rides can be controlled or manipulated, with fins moving up and down or claws reaching out.
We had only two full days in Nantes. On one we visited Les Machines and on the other we explored the city, intending to visit its highly regarded botanical gardens, but rain or the threat of it kept us from venturing that far. We did get to see the Passage Pommeraye, a mid-19th-century shopping mall, though we did no shopping.
On Wednesday, May 14, we picked up a rental car and continued our adventure, north to Cancale in Brittany.
Here are some snapshots from Nantes:
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| Visitors are invited to help operate the robot-like creatures in the Galerie of Les Machines des L'Ile. |
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| A sloth moves very slowly in the Galerie. |
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| Insects become giants in the Galerie. |
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| Le Grande Elephant towers over pedestrians on the riverside plaza where it rules supreme. |
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| Riders enter the elephant (the inside is meant to resemble a 19th-century parlor) through this balcony. Here the elephant has moved away from the stairs that riders climb. |
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| The eye of the beast. Everything at Les Machnes de L'Ile is made only of wood, leather and metal, with the exception of one fish on the carrousel that has plastic fins. |
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| Les Machines captures the feeling of a carnival from a century or more ago. |
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| A visiting school group poses in front of the carrousel. |
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| A blue crab lives on the sea floor, the lowest level of the carrousel. |
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| This is probably the only carrousel in the world that has a lobster ride. I think the lobster is supposed to be pulling the carriage. |
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| On the carrousel, a submarine rider has an array of controls to operate. |
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| Riders can make the fins flap on this fish. |
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| Nantes was the capital of Brittany and the seat of the dukes of Brittany until it was surplanted by Rennes in 1532. Now it's been reassigned to the Loire-Atlantique department and is no longer officially connected to Brittany. The castle of the dukes of Brittany is in the center of the city, which these days has a population of more than 300,000. |
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| The Passage Pommeraye brought Paris-style shopping to Nantes in the 1800's. |
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| The Theatre Graslin overlooks Place Graslin. Barely visible on the right is the Oceania Hotel de France, where we stayed. |
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| La Cigale is an art nouveau brasserie on the Place Gaslin. Cigale means cicada, and a stylized representation of the insect is worked into the room's design, most of it executed in museum-quality ceramic tiles. We had three breakfasts here and one dinner. This is a must-see, must-eat-at place for anyone visitng Nantes. |
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