N 47.242352 W 1.556580 - CAMPING CAR PARK NANTES - 13.30€/24 hours services included. No electricity.

We left the Île de Ré in the rain after driving towards the lighthouse where there were some restaurants and then finding the only car park did not allow motorhomes . Any pleasure we had from our visit was dampened by the weather (no pun intended) and the fact that we couldn't use our bikes to see parts of the Island.

We hot-wheeled out of there and headed inland and north. I found what I thought would be a nice little place to stop just north of Marans - Sainte-Radegonde-des-Noyers. Had a similar problem as we had a week ago - we just couldn't find it. We were in the right road but there was supposed to be a sports stadium around but the bit we found bore no relation to the photo. We turned around and headed back to Marans.

N46.313 W0.99157 - MARANS SUPER U - Free parking.

We spent the night here with about a dozen other vans and left in the morning after using the jet washer on the van - not so many dead bugs on the front now.

We pulled into a layby for lunch and spotted an Irish registered Hobby motorhome . It had been at Silves and also at the Barragem do Póvoa in Portugal at the same time as us. We didn't get a chance to speak to them this time though.

We made it to Nantes at about 17:30 and found our way through the centre to the Camping Car Park which uses the same entrance gate as Nantes Camping. It was another rigmarole to get entry i.e. First name, last name, mobile phone number, address, email address etc. At least this one accepted my mobile number. We got issued with a plastic card and got in and settled in this pleasant parking area under trees, no point trying to get satellite TV.

Today, we took the tram down to the centre because we wanted to see and ride on the 'Nantes Elephant'. An English couple a couple of vans down gave me their street map with the tram routes on it. Just outside the Campsite is a tram stop. You buy your ticket from the machine and as we weren't sure what we needed we opted for an 8.50€ ticket that was valid for four people for 24 hours . I think the other option for us was 1.50€ each for one hour's travel and we weren't quite how that worked.

We got there but not quite using the easiest route - when did we ever! We paid to go on the elephant and to go in the galleries - 8.50€ each for the Elephant and 8.50€ each for the Galleries and it would have been another 8.50€ each for the Carousel but we thought we would decide on that one later.

Inside the Galleries are mechanical creatures, mainly insects but there is a Heron. Members of the 'audience' are invited to participate. The first one we saw was a Spider, a huge thing with red eyes. It had an operator and three members of the public sitting in what would have been the creature's back. They were operating levers to move the legs as it rose up from it's nest into the air.

We also watched the Heron 'take off' and fly. These creatures are made of metal, wood, leather and of course are operated with hydraulics .

From there we went into the workshop area and then from there to the Heron's 'tree' which has long metal 'branches' that branch out over the terrace of the café below. These branches have walkways along them but they were not for me I'm afraid.

The time came for our Elephant ride. We watched it lumbering it's way towards us spraying water (fine spray) at watching pedestrians and trumpeting as Elephants do.

There are two levels for travelling - right at the top and a lower level inside the belly of the animal with a little veranda each side. At the top there is a 'crow's nest' up by the head and another lower one at the tail. The Elephant follows three trails depending upon where you get on, each about 30 minutes long. Ours' was the last third of the journey and probably not the best from a scenery point of view. The three are: NEF, Carousel and Passerelle. NEF and Carousel are probably better because they are on the river side rather than the railway of Passerelle but we enjoyed it nonetheless . It's very high up, much higher than we expected.

We decided to forgo the Carousel and come back to the van. This time we took the easier route by crossing the river, picking up a tram on Line 1, getting off on the second stop, walking around the corner to tramline 2. We had to wait for a demonstration march to pass before we could cross the road. This turned out to be an anti Macron march so one has to presume it was pro Marine Le Pen which is disappointing for us.

On the trams there were little green boxes which I think we should have put our ticket into for the bar code to be scanned, but we didn't so I suppose in theory we could have given them to someone else to use within the 24 hours. Only saw two other people do it anyway.

Once back home, Mike decided to make another adjustment to our door - and the door fell off, and the screw that did a disappearing act in Hondarribia did it again! Door back on, screw found (phew!). Mike has now promised not to make anymore adjustments to it until we are back home.

Fortunately, the rain held off for us until after the door was fixed!