The Machines de L'île

"Ooh-la-la. Vous est un Big Boy, aren't vous?"
A week ago I was off the blog/radar in Brittany, France. It's a region famous for its neolithic monuments (of which more later, I don't doubt) - but here's something it should be at least as famous for because it is TOTALLY F*CKING WONDERFUL: Les Machines de L'île in the city of Nantes.


The Machines is a gigantic ongoing steampunk art project inspired by Jules Verne. They build HUGE mobile creatures that are part vehicle, part puppet, and all awesome.

BEHOLD THE ELEPHANT: it's 12m tall and can take 50 passengers on a 45 minute walk!

(When the drivers aren't on strike, of course...) Here's a little something they built for China:



Their current project is the Heron Tree, a 45m steel structure with a self-sustaining plant ecosystem, in which visitors and robots interact among the branches. 


They are busy building working prototypes:



It crawls!
It scampers!
IT FLIES!

It looks really weird!
No, hold on, this is way weirder...
OMG I'm going to have nightmaresAlready functioning on-site is the gigantic three-storey Marine Worlds Carousel

Tentacles!!!
... which we got free rides on because of the strike :-D

A hysterically happy AshblessSo, if you ever go to France, I wholeheartedly recommend a visit to Les Machines de L'île :-)