The shipyards on the Île de Nantes closed in 1987 and took the city's industrial identity with them. What replaced it is a workshop that builds enormous articulated animals out of wood, steel and hydraulics — and runs them in public.
The Grand Éléphant is the one everybody comes for: about twelve metres tall, carrying roughly fifty passengers, walking a slow circuit and spraying water from its trunk. The Carrousel des Mondes Marins is a three-storey merry-go-round of deep-sea creatures you operate yourself. The Galerie des Machines is the workshop, where the machinists demonstrate prototypes and you watch the next one being built.
These are separate tickets, and the elephant runs to a schedule rather than continuously. The ride sells out first in school holidays.
Even with no ticket at all, the elephant walks outdoors on a public quay. You can stand and watch it for nothing — which a surprising number of visitors do not realise.
Les Machines de l'Île in pictures
