The Mondial Air Ballons (more commonly known as The Metz Balloon Fiesta) is held every 2 years on the old army airbase in Chamley near Metz. The fiesta was held between the 27th of July and the 5thAugust 2007.

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Day 1: Friday 27th July 2007. Well the day starts of very early, leaving Bristol at 0530hrs to get to Dover for 1005hrs. We make it with about an hour to spare so pretty good timing. After holding up the queue to board the ferry we finally get on board and try to find something to eat. Finding out that we can't go in the club lounge or that we're not truckers we finally end up having a full breakfast in the public's café (even after walking around the ship about 6 times!)

About an hour and a half later we arrive in France and decide to pay the Toll and make our way to the airbase to check in. Bob the Monkey was happy as he had plenty of bananas to eat.

Long drive, stop to fuel up and arrive at the airbase. Check in and then wait in the queue for around 2 hours to get our passes! Just in time to see lots of balloons taking off - unfortunatly I left my camera in the van so didn't get any photos! Then we fuel up our tanks and head off to our temporary hotel for the evening to get a good nights sleep before the morning briefing.


Day 2: Saturday 28th July. After getting some much earned sleep we get up to the airbase with the help of John Clease (SatNav!) but they cancel on us. I was back at the van too busy rigging up my helmet camera and sleeping to notice that everyone was having breakfast - all phones had broken I think! Going back to the hotel and sleeping a bit more was a good idea!! Then we swapped hotels to the one that we will be in all week, bit cramped for 3 in a room but it has free Wi-fi so I'm not complaining!

Back up to the airbase for 6pm for briefing and it's a possibilty that they will fly, balloons are told to go on the launch site and await instuction over the radio for permission to fly. By now the flags are horizontal and flapping a bid mad but balloons start to inflate and a Lindstrand demonstrator takes off just as the green flag has been raised. We decide not to fly as it was too windy, along with a few others that did not fly. Strangely enough there was a special shape hopper that DID fly!!

We went to have a few beers and some crépes and then back to the hotel before tomorrow morning's briefing at 6am.

Day 3: Sunday 29th July. After getting up at 5am to get to briefing at the airbase and stuffing our faces with pan au chocolate and bread, it was decided that it was too windy to fly so we all went back to our hotels to sleep. We had a table booked for us all at our hotel for lunch and Ellie had made us all some t-shirts with suitable (or non suitable!) captions on the back. To some of our delight we saw that they had roast beef on the menu, served with chips. Great, chance to have some cooked beef! Well, that's what we thought - turned out to be cold raw beef with chips! Nice!!

After such delights we go our own way and back to briefing at 6pm for it only to get cancelled, not surprising seeing at it was pouring down with rain!! That meant to the local bar! After a few beers, Irish coffe and some chips we retired to our rooms to get some sleep as the "Launch Master" has given us a 100% chance of flying in the morning.

Day 4: Monday 30th July. Again up at 5am to get to the airbase for 6 for the briefing. As promised by the launch master yesterday it was flyable! Yay! After stuffing our faces with bread again it was time to go out into our zones and set up for take off. There were around 200 (probably more) other balloons taking off in the nice sunny morning with mist in the valleys. For those who have not been yet it really is something to see as there are just hundreds of balloons flying really low and playing about in the fields.


After some much needed sleep we set off for briefing once again. It turned out that the direction was really rubbish and it was slightly too windy. We all decided that we would take off away from the airbase and try and land on it instead! After letting off a few met balloons we chose our launch site with the permission from the farmer and his dog. We weren't really sure about it as it was VERY windy at the time and seeing the inflation of one of the balloons confirmed that fact that we were going to wait a bit.

After waiting a while a few more balloons decided to take off with no sign of the wind disappearing any time soon. Lots of balloons from all other directions had the same idea as us to try and land at the airbase and were whizzing across the tops of the trees. We did get to cold inflation stage and we got a radio call to tell us that it was 16 knots. Three seconds later that turned into 19 knots so we decided that it was too windy, went and had a beer with a plate of chips and had an early night!



Day 4: Tuesday 31st July. Briefing at 6am showed that once again it would be flyable, nice direction and very little wind. We inflated alongside Alan in G-OVET, Mark in Teachers, Lee in Pixel and Tim in his hopper. Was a really nice flight and we didn't go far at all. Got back in time to refuel quickly and to get into the town centre of Metz to get some lunch.

Go To Page Two Of Metz 2007