The other highlight of our long weekend in Nantes on the West Coast of France was the day we spent exploring the truely amazing Les Machines de l’île a totally unprecedented artistic project, born from the François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice’s imagination. A crossroads of Jules Verne’s “invented worlds”, of the mechanical universe of Leonardo da Vinci, and of Nantes’ industrial history, on the exceptional site of the former shipyards. Forget Disneyland Paris – bring your kids here! I think these photos explain it much better than I can – I can’t wait to go back to see what they’ve been up to…
During an extended cmapervan trip around the West Coast of France we spent a very happy long weekend in Nantes exploring all that this incredibly creative city has to offer. One of the big highlights was the Le Voyage à Nantes an amazing art trail that covers 10-miles around the île de Nantes and the estuary. Highlights include an old cement factory that has been repurposed as a clock, an artificial wall that was dropped into the city and depicts all the famous people through history that have a connection with Nantes, a life size model of a traditional French house partly submerged in the esturary, a wonderful boardwalk that takes through otherwise inaccessible, marshlands, a series of beautiful rooftop gardens that have been sited on the roof of a decommissioned submarine base and a snake or serpent sculpture in the shallows – amazing! New installations and artworks are added to the trail each year – if you’re in that part of the world go see it.
July 2012: On our last day in San Fran we took the ferry over to Sausilito and had a wander around the marina at Galilee Harbour and loved the quirky artwork that was built into the landscape.
July 2012: I was lucky enough to spend a few days exploring San Francisco and was captivated by the charm, art and creativity of this lovely city – can’t wait to go back! I visited San Francisco Museum of Modern Art specifically to see the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo paintings.
July 2012: Another day’s exploring San Francisco this time we headed over to the famous 60’s hippy mecca at Haight-Ashbury and then walked over to the Mission District looking for murals and street art. Our cities and streets are wonderful open air galleries these days with artists reclaiming the urban landscape from corporate advertisers and developers – I love exploring new cities looking for street art as you really get to see the real communities that make a city great.
July 2012: We loved walking around the streets in San Francisco, there’s so much to see and shanks ponny is the best way to take it all in, although we did jump on the odd tram too!
journeys – collections – inspiration
