Les Machines de l'île

About this place

Les Machines de l'île is an art and machine park on the Île de Nantes, the island in the Loire at Nantes in western France, about 1.6 km in a straight line south-west of the city centre. It is set in the huge halls of the city's former shipyards. Created by the artists François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice, the project brings together the imagination of Jules Verne, who was born in Nantes, the mechanical world of Leonardo da Vinci and the industrial past of the city. Its star is the Great Elephant, built in 2007: 12 m tall and 8 m wide, made of 45 tonnes of wood and steel. It carries up to 49 passengers on a slow walk around the site and sprays water from its trunk. In the Galerie des Machines the builders show and run the creatures they are making, such as a giant ant, a spider and a heron, and visitors can sometimes climb aboard. The Marine Worlds Carousel, nearly 25 m high, has 35 moving sea creatures on three levels, and riders can work some of them. The workshop is open to view, so visitors can watch the machines being built. Elephant rides and the gallery need tickets, which sell out on busy days, while the outdoor site and the old shipyard halls can be seen freely.