SAUBRAZ: Swiss artist Francois Monthoux`s annual project to build clay sculptures on the banks of Switzerland`s Toleure river has sprawled into a captivating castle complex this year as the drought afflicting Europe allows him to extend his dream world.

Monthoux began this year`s project with modest ambitions six weeks ago but the drought allowed him to build an entire city of spires. Now he has mixed feelings: he wants it to rain, but is sad at the thought of his dream world disappearing when it does.

`I imagine the life of the people walking under the arches, under the bridge, looking at the monuments, looking at the city,` said Monthoux, who works with clay from thedried bed of the Toleure river in the Vaud canton in western Switzerland.

`So, I enter a bubble, and I become a dreamer ... I see their world being created under my fingers,` he added.

Monthoux, a nature lover, says he is sad to see plants dying all around him and `it would be a catastrophe` if an enduring drought meant he could keep going with the project for years. At the same time, he knew from the outset it was temporary.

`Of course, I`m a little bit sad, because I`m sad that the form I gave to the matter will disappear,` he said. Visitors to the sculpture are enjoying it while it lasts.

`I don`t have words to say what I feel, because it`s ... it`s just sublime,` said Heidi Butty, a Vaud resident.-Reuters