Les Machines de l'Île

Time your visit with one of the Elephant's walks for a spectacular show! The exhibition is nice but you can skip booking tickets if you'd like and simply walk around the area to enjoy the parks and views.

There are three separate tickets needed. The gallery is impressive in a way, but just stuff to see. Staff picks children or young women as volunteers to demonstrate certain machines, and the rest of the visitors stand crowded together. The carousel is fun. Make a reservation if you want to ride the elephant. The gift shop prices are higher than in most other attractions.

Excellent experience with manège and visiting the les machines. Bravo to the team, explaining how machines work and making it interactive with a great sense of humor, engaging kids. Our kids loved that! One star less is because our ride with the Grande Elephant was cancelled the next day, while we kept our room for one more night and the garage parking (expensive) just for that riding experience. We were told that we would get reimbursement, but we haven't got any email with apologies or confirming reimbursement. We drove 750 kms to come for that and got that experience. And we found out about cancellation only when we came with kids in the morning for the ride!

Outdid my expectations. Fascinating and inclusive demonstrations of all the " machines " by friendly and informative staff. I loved it and had I been younger would have taken up the offers to ride and operate the machines. Our Nantes pass got us straight in.

Yes, the exposition was generally good, but the price is too high. As a student I havd to pay 8 euros(higher than the history museum of Nantes!) for simply some machine animals.

The EHEDG Congress dinner at this venue was superb. We had a tour of the museum followed by a three course dinner. The catering was excellent and everyone had hot food, incredibly good job. It was outside so it got a bit cold later in the evening so we just kept dancing 😁

Could not recommend highly enough if my pictures mean anything to you visit immediately the gang running it are so good and really take an interest in explaining everything if you or your children show an interest.

Great and different place to visit with plenty of places to eat and drink just a few minutes away, it's a nice place to walk around. It's well run and well priced. Nice interesting way to spend a few hours.

This is not an "amusement park" but instead a displayed work in progress by an artist-industrial group of some fascinating large mechanical creations in a well reused shipyard. On an hour-long circulation of the machines, guides walk through each unit, showing how they move and providing dialogue in French. There's an app they have you download that provides basic info in several other languages including English, but not nearly what the live info seems to provide. Everything is charged separately: the machines on display, elephant rides, and carousel rides. Doing all 3 would add up to over 25 EUR per adult.

So many things to do in this lovely city. Les Machines de I'lle is one of the big highlights of the city. One of the first places you must visit when you get to Nantes. Appealing for any age group. Make sure to get there early because the lines can get long. Also make sure to visit their gift shop! I enjoyed buying a few things in there and I look forward to returning back again. Keep in mind they are closed on Sunday and Monday so it's best to visit the city from Tuesday-Saturday.

A very interesting concept in Nantes. My French is severely lacking, so I still don't fully understand what it is, but it seems to be a collective or artists coming together to produce something truly original in an exhibition space. The place is full of fantastic things, the highlight of which is the massive elephant which trundles through the main building, spraying water at the visitors. You can also ride on the elephant, which looks like great fun. If you do speak French, there is a museum-type part explaining the machines and how they were build, as well as what the future plans are. There's a café and shop on site, so you can make a day trip of it. Worth checking out in Nantes.

Les Machines de l'Ile is a sight to see. It's the closest thing I've seen in France to a "theme park" as you would consider them in the United States, but it's not really an America theme park either. There isn't enough plastic here, and it's all made of metal. It's almost steampunk-ish. They've built a walking elephant with leather ears (made from the skins of 10 cows, PETA eat your heart out) that sprays you with water periodically. You can ride said elephant from one end of the park to the other (which wasn't open when we got there, but will open in a few weeks, a marineland of sorts) for a fee, but I found it sufficient to watch and stay out of its way (especially when it sprayed!). The gallery inside is home to many other animals you can ride (that is, if you can push all of the children out of th way). There's a caterpillar with two levers to control it: one to advance, and the other to contract its body. There is also a huge heron with baskets for people to ride in, complete with pedals to flap wings, and move other parts of it. It's truly a spectacle to behold. I would happily return.

If you have the opportunity to visit Nantes, dedicating an hour or two to Les Machines de l'Ile is a must! It's one of the most intriguing museums/showcases/amusement parks I've ever been to, and there's really nothing quite like it in the U.S. You can ride Le Grand Eléphant, a 4-floor high mechanical elephant that walks around spouting water from its trunk while giving off the occasional trumpet (6,50 €; student price). Additionally, there is an exhibit showcasing the different animal and insect machines built in the past and you have the opportunity to climb onto the first branch of the Heron Tree (6,50 €; student price). The whole Heron Tree is set to be completed by 2018, so that will definitely be a sight to see and explore! I didn't go to the Marine World Carousel, but from the history film shown on the second floor, it seems like a unique carousel for people of all ages.

The adventure of machines continues! The Machines of the Island are a totally unpublished artistic project. Born of the imagination of François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice, it is situated between the invented worlds of Jules Verne, the mechanical universe of Léonard de Vinci and the industrial history of Nantes, on the exceptional site of the formershipyards. The public is invited to discover, freely, this singular mechanical bestiary, to walk on the big branch of the Tree in the Herons of about twenty metres and about twenty tons, which takes(brings) out its branches of the Workshop. He can also admire the walking of the Big Elephant or embark in his edge. Visit the Gallery of Machines, where the stagehands(drivers) give life and present the first elements of the marine Worlds, the strange creatures of the gaps which are going to populate the future merry-go-round, at feet of the yellow crane, on the edges of the Loire in 2011. They install passengers to the commands of animals of ocean deeps, marine monsters or funny flying machines: the squid In reverse thrust, the manta ray, the huge crab, the boat rages, the lamp of ocean deeps the models of elephants, or still the European Trial center in flight. Sketches, models, films, tell all the adventure of their contruction, with which Jules Verne would not have to blush. Discover the Workshop, the space of work and creation, visible since the passageway, where all the skills are for the work around the elements of wood and steel of the future Machines. Take the branch prototype of the Tree from Herons, in prelude to the installation of the big steel tree of 28 m of height surmounted by two herons, capable of taking passengers within terraced gardens, which should be born in 2016 on the Island Beaulieu. It is the first element of this machine which allowed to validate the solidity of the construction, the security of the public and the végétalisation. At the end of the visit we take it to join the Coffee(Cafe) of the Branch and the Shop of the Gallery. And travel aboard the Big Elephant. The pachyderm lives under one of the big Naves. It is the point of departure of its favourite walk towards the yellow crane, the symbolic element of the port of Nantes. The impressive animal can embark on the stomach and on the back, 45 passengers. It is real architecture in movement which goes out of a cathedral of steel (45 tons of steel and wood (tulip tree of Virginia) - hydraulic carcass irrigated by 4 tons of oil - engine 450 horses - Speed 1 in 4 km/h 12 = M of height and 8m of wide). Every exit of the pachyderm is a unique show. It is a happiness to visit this nave in the machines which will be installed in the merry-go-round as a fabulous place of the sea and of twenty thousand leagues under seas . It is fascinating and amusing for the big as the youngs. We not stopped speaking about it run there, it is not often that we can dream please excuse my translation!

Here's a video demonstrating the three major projects, the Great Elephant, the Marine Worlds and the Heron Tree, of Machines de l'Ile in Nantes. Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSLvz8SBjtk

We just had time to see the mechanic elephant, but even this single attraction was worth our while. If you are around Nantes you have to visit this place!