Cycle Touring in France: Bastille Day celebrations in Nantes

After settling into our hotel we headed off into downtown Nantes to find a good restaurant for dinner before walking across to the island to watch the fireworks. We had a quick look at The Machine first. This is a place where they have made mechanical animals and other robotic mechanisms. The elephant was particularly impressive.

There was a mexican theme to the day and a twelve piece group were playing dance music. It sounded very much like the music Madness used to play and they had saxophone and trumpets along with guitars, drums, keyboards and several vocalists. All the songs seemed to end with all the band members playing as fast as they could and jumping up and down. It was great fun listening and watching everyone dancing along to the band which played from around 7pm to 11pm when it was dark enough for the fireworks. They were also themed to the music and very artistic. Thousands of people had gathered by that time and there was a sea of heads as far as we could see, over the bridges and on the other side. It lasted for around 20 minutes and everyone clapped and cheered at the end before drifting home.

La Machine