Tours, France

We were mentally prepared for the hottest day of our holiday with an expected 38 degrees so we got up early (7:30), packed and checked out leaving our bags at the hotel to pick up later. We walked through the eat streets we had seen last night and even though it was 9:30 there were hardly any people about or eateries open – which is common for France. If it was the UK there would be English breakfasts being eaten everywhere! Eventually we found a lunch bar and got a Croque Monsieur (ham and cheese toast), and a baguette with ham, cheese and tomato for €11 all together and walked a further 7 minutes to the Cathedral to wait for the hop on hop off bus.

We felt quite the back packers sitting on the cool Cathedral steps eating our breakfast, and watching the mornings activities warm up. It was quite pleasant at this stage – probably 25 degrees with a nice bit of cool in the shade. A few more people turned up but the bus did not. After a further 10 minutes one tourist rung the company (they were French) and found out the bus was delayed until 11:15 due to a flat battery. Great. That one hour was going to make a difference to the heat, our plans and we couldn’t really afford to loose an hour as we wanted to be on an air conditioned train around 2-3pm when it really was unbearable and too hot for doing anything.

We made the decision to walk 10 minutes to a tram stop, and go directly to ’Les Machines de L’ile’. The tram is air conditioned and nice and modern which was nice and it drops you a short 5 minute walk away from the island. Set on former ship yards it is the creation of two men who were inspired by Jules Verne and Leonardo da Vinci and took their ideas to blend with Nantes industrial past and create a little bit of fun and fantasy. It’s star attraction is a huge mechanical elephant which you can take rides on and a big 25m high marine carousel which oils like a fairground art. The creatures that children sit on can be manipulated by them to do things for example the dragon can blow smoke, they can turn heads, flap wings, steer boats and more. The elephant is 12m high, weighs 48.4 metric tons (steel and wood), blows water out his trunk and roars and blinks!

When we got there the elephant was on a walk and it is truly impressive to see it move. He/she is really beautifully made and so realistic you think it is alive – maybe not a real elephant but an alive creature. The kids getting sprayed with water were so cute – shrieking and giggling in delight and awe and lining up for more and more. I kind of wish he would spray me as the temperature kept rising.

The carousel was also beautifully made and it was also great to watch the children’s delight at being able to take charge of their rides and manipulate them to do things. The expressions on their faces was once of fear and delight as it must all seem so big and real to them too.

Our ticket also gave us free access to their gallery where you could see blueprints of machines, listen to talks (only in French) and maybe get to see some other smaller projects run. We skipped through this fairly quickly as we couldn’t really understand anything which was a bit disappointing for a tourist attraction to be only set up for French. We then got to exit via walking up some stairs onto a platform where they have started on a big heron tree which will end up to be 20m long and 20 tonnes.

We then took the nice tram to the station to get our tickets and then visited “Jardin des plantes de Nantes” which is basically next door and across the road. It is one of the cities earliest botanical gardens dating back to 1688, and then developed in 1726 and further in 1806. It still has some very old trees such as a magnolia from 1807, and pictured some old conifers or sequoia around 140-150 years old. It is also known for some fun art – also pictured. It was midday by now and pretty warm but the park offered some lovely shaded areas which we stuck to most of the time. Even so we were pretty sticky, but sticky in the shade (we back packs and faces) is better than total melt in the sun.

We made our way back to the station to see if there was any air conditioned places to eat or rest of which there were none, so continued on to the hotel (underpass) which was air-conditioned and had a cuppa and shared a cake there. We only had about 40 minutes to spare so did not have time for a full lunch – instead opting to grab something from the train station to eat on the train. Back to the cake – it cost €6.50 but was so worth it. Chocolate on the outside, a bit of cake inside but in the very centre was a dense flavoursome raspberry soft filling – a bit like a summer pudding but mainly fruit. There was also sorbet and a macaron on the side and for risk of repeating myself it was divine – the kind of thing you don’t want to share.

Even though it was lovely and cool it took all that time sitting to begin to cool off and we then had to rush out with just enough time to grab a baguette and a Caesar salad, another couple of drinks and get our train. They had police type people checking the tickets up on the platform which was unusual – quite serious stuff. The train was a nice high speed SNCF intercity with good air conditioning and 1.5 hours later we had to hop off at St. Pierre station and wait 20 minutes for a connection on a regional train – for a 5 minute ride to Tours.

OMG when we hopped off at St. Pierre it was like stepping into a sauna. It was more than 38 degrees and there was only one tiny wait room with a silly little stand alone cooler trying its best to take the sting out of the air. It was crowded here and Vern preferred to wait on the platform which was on the other side. I chose however to sit out the less than ideal room for 10 minutes as 40+ degrees is to be avoided if one can in my books.

You may wonder how I know temperatures – a/ google weather updates b/ body reaction and experience. Basically when you sweat standing still in rivets, and after a while even that does not seem to cool you, you KNOW the temperature is above 40. That is what it was like – horrid. I did not see anyone else who seemed to be enjoying it either.

Tours station was under cover a bit and it was around 4:30 so theoretically it should have started to cool a little by now. We put our packs on, bought more cold drink and set google map to find us to our hotel which was meant to be a 10 minute walk. Well for some reason she took us around the block first which added about 8 minutes in the blistering heat. If it didn’t cost me so much I would have loved to have chucked her out a window! So after nearly 20 minutes including a gentle uphill section, we arrived at our hotel. Check in was completed quickly, up a flight of stairs, literally peeled our wet clothes off our backs and had a long delightful cold shower followed by groans and lying horizontal for half an hour just enjoying being out of the heat.

Our room is not air conditioned but is comparatively cool, certainly enough to gain some equilibrium before heading out to find some dinner. It was still warm out, but the sun had gone low, and it was more low 30’s which feels so much better than 40 something. We wandered a bit and came to a newer part of town as we needed access a money machine. Across the road we saw a ‘Alsace’ style bistro/restaurant so with fond memories of the great meals we had there we sat down at an outside table with great anticipation. By now a wind had come up and that was nice as it was like having a giant fan blowing at you.

We had two typical dishes; Flammkuchen and Choucroute garnie. For description of this you can check out my other blog – but its a thin woodfire pizza with creme fraise and cheese and onion, and the choucroute is a sauerkraut, potato and mixed sausage and pork dish. We did not expect such a huge serving – my photo doesn’t show how big it was but between us, we could only eat half of the choucroute (which is saying something). It was ok, nice enough but no where the standard we had in the Alsace or might I say that I have learnt to make myself.

After doing our best and failing, we walked home via the river and just generally enjoyed viewing the evening and all the night sights and activity. Its good that we booked a ‘garden’ room as our hotel is on a lively eat street so we do not get any noise thank goodness!