I had a few days to spare, so my partner and I did a long weekend in France. We left on Thursday, and returned home Sunday. We went to Paris (as is obligatory), Avranches, and Nantes. I saw a post online about Les Machines de l’île, and when I saw that they are in France I decided I would like to go see them. I realised that I had a small amount of free time, and so on a whim arranged it all. I was surprised with how well the trip went, considering the short notice! Even hotel booking was pretty cheap.
We arrived in Paris at about 3, and went to take compulsory pictures of the Eiffel Tower. We got a ride in a fake rickshaw (guy pulling a part with a bicycle) around Paris. Although it was pretty expensive, I would still recommend it! After we had finished with that and had dinner, it was dark. We took a few pictures of the Eiffel Tower, and I had a play with using my fish-eye lens under the tower. For a small amount of time there were additional lights lit-up on the tower, I’m not sure if they were testing Christmas lights or something as we couldn’t find any mention of them. My camera stand is pretty bad, and it seems to lean much more than I notice. I might have to attach a spirit level to it…
We spent one night in Paris, in a hotel room which bizarrely had a window from the room in to the bathroom. If anyone knows why such a thing would exist, do let me know! Next stop on our trip was Avranches. It was quite a drive there, but thankfully my partner did all of the driving. When planning what else to do in France (aside from look at giant robots), I came across a picture of Mont Saint-Michel. I thought to myself that it would look really cool from the air, and so searched if there were helicopter rides over it available. I came across a website for a company offering autogyro rides over it, and so we went for that! As they have one pilot and one passenger, we had two autogyros up at the same time. I took far too many pictures during the flight, but it was an amazing experience! Very cold though, as the autogyro isn’t enclosed.
Finally on our trip we went to Nantes, to see Les Machines de l’île. We rode on the elephant, as well as inside a giant angler fish in the carrousel. I got a few videos of it all on my new GoPro, as well as many pictures. I kept trying to get sprayed by the elephant while using my GoPro camera, but I think the people operating it must deliberately avoid cameras. It was a very cool trip, and I’ll be returning in 2019 to see the giant tree they’re hoping to build. I wish I could see the robotic spider, but I think that it must be long gone 🙁
I’ve also put several videos of the robots on Youtube (click to view)
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