Nantes, St Nazaire and Clisson

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There's a few things to see around Nantes while you're enjoying the sun and rain. The drive up to St Nazaire is not all that scenic but when you arrive there's lots of big boys toys to check out. Starting with the freshly made cruise ship the MSC Orchestra, hot of the press so to speak, getting loaded up for it's maiden voyage. Then there's the ship yard where they are building another cruise ship. These things are built in sections and then a crane drops each piece into place.

After that it was off to the submarine that they have in one of the u-boat pens. Not bad but I think the one at the National Maritime Museum in Sydney or the Nucleur Sub at Cherbourg are done up better. But the interesting bit is the u-boat pens left over from WW2. Walking around the docks you can't escape Tin Tin either, as a lot of the area features in the cartoons.

The final big boy toy was seeing the Beluga taking on a load. Beluga is the modified Airbus plane that transports sections of fuselage to Toulouse for the final joining up of the plane. There's enough room to take the fuselage for the new A380 double decker airbus.

Around Nantes there are castles, actually there's a lot of castles around here. Nantes' castle has recently been restored and reopened to the public and well worth the walk around. It even has a moat and a drawbridge, how good is that. The other castle that I ended up at was the one at Clisson, this was because the wine museum was shut. Go figure the day I choose to visit le Musée du Vignoble nantais, it's shut, oh well plan 'B' was excellent. Clisson is one of those towns that has developed what it has into a neat attraction. The castle is under restoration but is well worth the walk around. Athough I'm starting to have enough of walking on cobble stones.

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Photos

Coffee grinders
Another wrong turn that turned out to be right led me to an antique market. Lots of bargains to be had here.