Puy du Feu

The last two days we spent the day at Puy du Feu which is a historical reinactment theme park based on aspects of French history. Eric first heard of the park while watching the Tour de France when it passed by in 1999 and has been on his bucket list ever since. So this was a super fun treat to be able to go. Tickets for this place go on sale 9 months in advance when they start selling day specific fast passes which give premiere seating for each show. Laure was super lucky to get us midweek passes and it made the experience so enjoyable (minus the heat so on day 2 we came better prepared).

This is the Puy du Feu...

Loaded into the Roman Colosseum for the main event. 

 We had a better plan the second day which got us great seats center stage in the shade while everyone else was lined up to enter...

 Let the show begin! The story line showed how the Gauls (French) began to embrace Christianity and didn't want to take part in the cruel and violent ways of the Roman empire and all the bloodsport. They were told that if they could survive the wrath of the gladiators that they would be allowed to worship their own god.

First the parade of Animals

 The gaggle of geese cracked me up while mixed in with "vicious" animals.

 Let the chariot races begin! The Gauls are in the white chariot.

 The Gauls have won the race and Caesar tried to go back on his word. He sent his beasts to attack the Christian Gauls but their peaceful ways rubbed off on the lions, tiger, and hyena refused to attack and they were granted their freedom.

One of our favorite shows was the bird show. There were 200 birds that flew overhead as part of a storyline of a girl who dreamed she could fly. The birds were amazing and were often within reach over our heads.

 Check out this wingspan, the amount of wind created as it flew overhead was amazing.

We walked through the viking village and saw artisan creations of that time period as well as the contraptions they built to stoke a fire.

The Vikings Show was cool as they depicted villagers fighting off attacks of the Vikings

There was a show about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The sets are so cool here how there is always a surprise coming out of the water.

I think our favorite show based on story and entertainment was the Secret of the Lance which was Joan of Arc who was off to fight off the attacks from the English and entrusted a woman with the responsibility for defending the castle. 

My favorite part was when knights were competing to show off their horsemanship to be able to fight with Joan. Unfortunately my phone save the video sideways so I will save you the crooked neck, but such cool tricks they performed on a running horse.

We walked through the medival village with craftsmen and women working on carving stone figures, leather, calligraphy, wood carving, stained glass making, etc.

The Musketeers of Richelieu

Their use of animals, water, and beautiful sets are amazing.

The water, lights, and music show at the end of the night was beautiful and a great end to another grand adventure.

We will come back Friday night for their grand show which only runs on Friday and Saturday night, we are so excited based on what we have seen so far!

Puy du Feu is like no other park we have been to. It is the second largest visited theme park in all of Europe behind Disneyland Paris. It gets 2 million visitors a year.

There were many exhibits that I failed to get pictures of because I was so mesmorized on how elaborate and cool they were. One that surprised me was a walk though the Verdun trenches which really gave you a feel of what it was like and gave us all an appreciation of the sights and sounds of war. Ally says halfway through, now I can see why veterans have PTSD. An impact I also felt was that we were going through French trenches and felt the same compassion for their soldiers as we would the Americans. In war it is often forgotten that those on other sides also have family and friends. My favorite part about travel is realizing that we have more in common with those on foreign soil than differences.

After being in a theme park we also noticed that there are many similarities in human behavior as at home. There are people who don't know how to park properly, people that stop in the middle of a pathway blocking traffic, kids who throw tantrums, and people who have no respect for personal space. But the tantrums are much more entertaining when they are in another language because you don't know what is being said but the tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions are the exact same in every language.