Les Machines de l’Île Nantes: Elephant, Carousel and the Steampunk Gallery

In a former shipyard on the Île de Nantes, a 12-metre mechanical éléphant roams the streets, a giant spider prowls the gallery above, and a three-level ocean carousel transports visitors to the depths of the sea like a Jules Verne fantasy. This is Les Machines de l’Isle – a steampunk wonderland and home to the iconic Nantes Éléphant.

I had already visited the mechanical Minotaur and friends at the Halle de la Machine in Toulouse and loved them. I had to complete the set by visiting Nantes to meet the extended family.

And there’s more to see in Nantes, beyond these mechanical marvels. Nantes is the captivating capital of Brittany. There’s the recently restored historic Château des Ducs de Bretagne, gardens, museums, and other attractions, all connected together by Le Voyage à Nantes: A 14-mile “green line” painted on the pavement to navigate through 120+ public artworks and major city sights.

These are the details of my time at l’Isle de Nantes with the machines, plus everything you need to know to make the most of your visit if you choose to go.

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Is It Worth Seeing les Machines de l’Isle

Yes, Les Machines de l’Île and Le Grand Éléphant are absolutely worth your time. It’s a unique place, inspired by Jules Verne with Leonardo da Vinci’s style of engineering. It is a must-see attraction in Nantes, particularly for families and those interested in art, engineering, or steampunk aesthetics. Make sure you book a ride on Le Grand Éléphant, save time to see the demonstrations in the Galleries, and ride the remarkable carousel.

About Les Machines de l’Isle

The inventor and artistic director behind all this is François Delarozière. He founded Compagnie La Machine in 1999. The machines themselves are mostly built in Nantes, with the sister site, Halle de la Machine in Toulouse, opening in 2018. The Toulouse machine museum serves as a permanent exhibition, maintenance, and performance space. It’s located on the “Piste des Géants. Many machines, including the 47-ton Minotaur, are managed and operated here daily by “Véritable Machinistes,” who are easily spotted in their distinctive orange overalls.

The creations in both Nantes and Toulouse are heavily inspired by Jules Verne’s fantastical worlds. The design process begins with research into how animals move, followed by Leonardo da Vinci-style sketches and then the assembly of intricate scale models. Only then do the full-sized builds take shape. Each new creature is “born” in public and continues its life through live shows designed to surprise and move the audience.

Visiting Les Machines de l’Isle

So these are the practicalities for your trip to the Halle de la Machine.

How to get to Les Machines de l’Isle

The machines are on an island just south of the city centre. If you are coming from central Nantes, it will be a short walk to Pont Anne de Bretagne, where you can cross onto the island.

If you are coming from the rail station, it’s a 30-minute walk. Go westbound along the All. Commandant Charcot, parallel with the railway line and past Château des Ducs, to the Anne de Bretagne bridge, where you cross onto the island.

Alternatively, you can catch Tram 1 to Chantiers Navals, to cross the bridge, or alternatively take bus 5, which will take you straight onto the island.

Booking your Trip

Tickets for Les Machines de l’île in Nantes can be purchased online via the official booking site in advance or at the ticket office on the day of the visit. The Grand Éléphant ride, the Galerie des Machines, and the Carrousel des Mondes Marins are ticketed separately, or you could buy a combined ticket. (discovery pass). I bought a Nantes card, which included admission to both the Galerie des Machines de l’île and the Carrousel des Mondes, as well as other attractions in the city. It didn’t include a Grand Éléphant ride; I purchased that separately, but I still found it excellent value.

Things to do at Machines de l’Isle

Once on the island, head for The Parc des Chantiers itself. It’s an open former shipyard space where the Éléphant walks. It’s definitely worth visiting, even if you don’t have tickets for its main attractions.

Let’s start with the main things you can do and see at Machines de l’Isle.

1 Ride the Nantes Elephant (Le Grand Éléphant)

The Grand Éléphant is the star attraction and beating heart of the island. Standing 12 metres tall and 8 metres wide, built from 45 tons of wood and steel, this extraordinary creature walks. Yes really! He leaves his home in the shipyard warehouses and ambles through the Parc des Chantiers with trunk swaying, ears flapping and dousing bystanders with blasts of water from his trunk. Genuinely unique and most definitely unforgettable!

While you can watch the walk for free from the park, which is worth doing regardless, the ride is the thing to do. Up to 52 passengers can board for a 30-minute journey, climbing a spiral staircase up onto the éléphant’s back for a view across the former shipyards. Once aboard, you can see the moving gears powering the legs, and a machinist tells you stories about the éléphant and has it blast its trunk for your pleasure.

A practical note: the Grand Éléphant can be cancelled if it’s out of order or the weather turns bad, so don’t bank your whole visit on it. Book well ahead, especially at weekends and during school holidays, as this sells out. If you haven’t booked, get to the ticket office as soon as it opens. And worth knowing: since 2018, the éléphant has been powered by a new hybrid motor, making it the world’s first eco-friendly mechanical pachyderm.

2 Visit the La Galerie des Machines

The Éléphant and the Carrousel are the showpieces, and I loved them, but it was the Galerie that I genuinely found the most interesting and astonishing part of the visit. It’s a living workshop where artists, engineers, and mechanics work together to design and assemble the machines of the future. The tour is led by a passionate machinista who leads you from one machine to the next, bringing the creatures to life as you go. There’s audience participation, too. So if you want a ride in a massive spider or to operate a giant sloth, it’s not a time to be shy. It’s well organised too. With more than one group being shown around at the same time, it needs to be.

An imposing 8-metre heron carries passengers and flies over the Galerie. Vegetation grows alongside mechanical plants and animals from a tree-top canopy: an ant, a spider, a hummingbird, a sloth, a chameleon, a swarm of butterflies.

High up in the rafters, a heron soars with an 8-metre wingspan while a mechanical spider awakens and climbs along its threads. Every creature is a prototype for the next grand project.

Your ticket also gets you up onto the workshop terraces, into a 16-minute film, and down the prototype branch of the Heron Tree on the way out. Allow at least an hour.

3 Take a ride on Carrousel des Mondes Marins

If you’ve read my post on Halle de la Machine in Toulouse, you’ll know that all these magnificent mechanical beasts share the same parents – Compagnie La Machine, under the creative direction of François Delarozière. But while Toulouse gave us a giant Minotaur and his spider companion, Nantes gives us the sea. And it does so in spectacular fashion.

Le Carrousel des Mondes Marins sits on the banks of the Loire, right opposite the Jules Verne Museum, which feels entirely appropriate. From the outside, it already makes a statement – a great big-top canopy, ornate carved pediments, and 16 fishermen from the world’s oceans standing guard around the rim. Step back and take it in before you go in. It’s quite a sight against a blue sky.

Inside, it’s something else entirely. This is not a carousel in any conventional sense. It’s a three-storey mechanical aquarium — seabed at the bottom, the abyss in the middle, the ocean surface above — and it is packed with 35 extraordinary creatures, each one rideable, each one interactive. There’s a Giant Crab, a Reverse Propulsion Squid, a Pirate Fish, a Manta Ray, and a Bathyscaphe that climbs the central mast. And hovering overhead, a vast skeletal sea creature that looks like it swam straight out of a nightmare – or a Jules Verne novel, which amounts to the same thing.

The creatures don’t just sit there. Riders can operate them, pulling levers and working mechanisms to make fins flap, claws snap, or limbs lurch into action. It’s theatrical and completely mad.

A visit with one ride takes around 45 minutes, though you’ll want longer just to wander the levels and take it all in. Book online in advance — especially at weekends and during French school holidays, queues can build quickly. The carousel is open to the elements and subject to weather conditions, so it’s worth checking before you go if conditions look rough.

4 Musée Jules Verne

The Jules Verne Museum sits in a handsome 19th-century building opposite the Carrousel des Mondes Marins, so it’s an easy pairing. Allow an hour, grab the audio guide, and come out the better for knowing the man who inspired all those extraordinary machines across the river.

It’s a compact museum, spread across eight sections tracing Verne’s life story, his masterpieces, and the role Nantes played in shaping his imagination. Manuscripts, books, illustrations, posters, games, and personal objects invite visitors into the world of his writing. Most visitors can explore it thoroughly in about an hour. Much of the signage is in French, though multilingual brochures are available at the entrance. As well as audio guides in several languages, including English.

A word of honest expectation-management: this is not a grand immersive experience. It’s great if you want to learn more about Jules Verne’s life, but it’s less so as family entertainment, unless you have time on your hands, or it’s raining.

5 Climb aboard the Musée Naval Maillé Brézé

You may notice a warship docked on the riverbank while exploring the Parc des Chantiers. It’s actually a 1950s French naval destroyer, decommissioned and now operating as a floating museum. Visitors can explore the engine rooms, the weapons museum, the command bridge, and the crew quarters. There are guided tours, and it’s best to book ahead.

Where to stay

I stayed centrally in Nantes in the Ibis Styles Nantes Centre Place Graslin. A super friendly hotel, well-located, with a good breakfast included. Here are some more options with living bookings. There are very few options on the island itself, but plenty north of the river in the city centre.

Where to next

If you are visiting or plan to visit Toulouse, I have another article covering the main things to see and do. I’ve also written about Carcassonne, a stunningly preserved medieval Citadel and fairy tale castle, which is a short train ride away. I made an extended stop before continuing through the Pyrenees to the stunning Principality of Andorra.

If you got this far, I hope you found this article useful. If you would like to read more, I have a newsletter where I send out my latest posts, and I would love it if you would join it.

Have you visited the machines in Toulouse? Or maybe you’ve visited their relatives in Nantes? Let me know in the comments.

Thank you for reading.

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