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Published: June 28th 2014
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Jo and I were up around 0830 but were fairly sure we wouldn't see the Herbys for a while due to their recovery from the delayed flight the previous day.
We set the GPS for the centre of Nantes and headed off in search of some breakfast, stopping in a carpark that was being set up as a market. We found a cafe and had a coffee and a hot chocolate before discovering the market.
There was a heavy Arabic influence to the market, with olives, spices and several stalls offering hot Arabic fare straight from the pots. Our interest was in the breads and cheeses initially and we picked up some ripe brie, a camembert and a blue cheese for less than EUR8. Further into the market we picked up olives, cherries, nectarines, wine, meat and bread. We were ready for a picnic.
Getting out of the carpark proved to be a mission as the concept of paying for the parking at the machine prior to getting to the barrier arm seemed foreign to everyone. My blood was boiling by the time we finally got out of there... cars were just pulling up to the barrier then
the occupants got out, joined a queue at the ticket machine, paid up and got back in their cars. It was crazy.
We collected the Herbys and found a small Loire Valley town not far from Nantes that seemed a good location for a picnic and spent a good hour devouring our market purchases. Life was good.
Elin had been googling things to do in Nantes and had heard about a huge mechanical elephant that was somewhere around town. Having typed "Elephant" into our GPS and getting no results, we set course for the town centre and hoped for the best.
It was Klara that spotted it first - how the rest of us missed it is beyond me. The Elephant was around 10 metres high, contained two viewing decks and was finished in timber. My vocabulary fails me here... describing this thing would take me forever so you'll just need to check out the photos when I eventually upload them.
Rides on the elephant were EUR12 and it's something that couldn't be missed so we boarded from the second floor and were "walked" across the riverside for around half an hour. The elephant even sprayed
passers-by with water from it's trunk at the will of the driver. This steampunk styled device was clearly the result of good funding for the arts by (I assume) local government and way, way too many beers/drugs consumed by it's creators. A good time was had by all.
After a quick ice-cream riverside, we headed back to the hotel where I had a quick snooze before Nik, Emil and I drove back to Clisson to catch the highlights of Hellfest Day Two - Soulfly, Deep Purple and Aerosmith. This was by far the softest night of the three but I really enjoyed both the softer acts (to my surprise in the case of Aerosmith). The highlight was Max Cavalera and Soulfly - really worth a watch, particularly to compare them with Sepultura the previous day.
Nik drove us back to the hotel and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow around 0100.
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