Puy du Fou

When Jeff and I were backpacking through Europe back in 2008, we saw ads for an intense historic theme park and vowed to check it out someday. August 8th was the day! We drove 2.5 hours from our Airbnb house in Civray alllll the way down to the park. Rose got carsick and thankfully I had saved my unused seasick barf bag from the Guernsey ferry, because Rose needed it. This was the second time that girl threw up from carsickness on this trip! Jerky stick shift driving plus windy narrow country roads and later stop-and-go traffic did a number on her poor equilibrium. It wasn't all peaches and cream for the rest of us either, sitting in that tiny car while Rose retched repeatedly into the tiny bag. We managed to pull over not too long after the puking ended, and I managed to double bag the nasty used barf bag. We arrived at Puy du Fou ten minutes later and disposed of the nasty vomit in the nearest trash can. There's my retrospective intro. Now on to my journal from the day:


Journal entry from Thursday, August 8, 2019:
We went to Puy du Fou today and it was a madhouse packed with people! Puy du Fou (literally, valley of the fool) is a historic theme park featuring a dozen or so over-the-top awesome shows set in different periods of French history. The park also has village recreations from different eras. The historic shows were spectacular--we saw three--but the lines were devilish. We waited an hour each for the first two shows and managed to slip into the third show after a mere 10 minutes of waiting. Shows we saw:

1. Vikings: stunts, fire, fight scenes, dog tricks, galloping horse stunts, a love story, falconry tricks, and two Viking ships (one slid down a hill into the water, one rose up from under the water in a deliciously creepy way).
2. Roman Colosseum: parade, gory gladiator fights complete with copious squirts of fake blood (but the fighting stunts were so well done and the blood was just enough to really seem possibly realistic--eek!), Chariot race (my favorite part--fascinating, exhilarating, and terrifying because it was super dangerous making all of those sharp turns with four chariots, each pulled by four horses) and, exotic animals (tiger, white lion, 3 lionesses, and a hyena)--they were trained to run across the arena and go to specific spots and do specific things like sit on top of a cage with "the prisoner" inside, but there were people in the arena and it was still awesome/crazy to see people down there with carnivores.
3. Three Musketeers, performed indoors on a massive stage: lots of French dialog in the beginning that my overtired brain could not get a grasp around, but then there was a scene of dancing white horses under a black light (3 real horses on stage, dancing and moving in unison with a trainer in front dancing with them and giving them cues)--it was so graceful and beautiful. After that there was a long grand exuberant finale where they flooded the squishy stage with an few inches of water and had 7-8 white horses prancing and doing tricks through the reflective water with musketeer riders and Spanish style barefoot big skirted dancing women twirling and exuding joyful energy as they danced among the trotting horses. It was lovely--quite breathtaking, really--and reminded me a little of the Lippizans.

We also walked through the recreated medieval village (we were unimpressed after all of our real life village touring-- we left quickly). We walked through a terrifying recreation of a World War I trench, complete with shaking floor, bomb sound effects, shouts, and all kinds of tragic details. A sign at the entrance warned about the emotional/scary nature of the trench, and there were strategically placed exits throughout the long stretch of the trench. It was so scary that when Amber whimpered I was happy to take her out of the nearest exit, where we waited for the rest of our family. They all said it was so sad and scary. War is sad and scary.

We got ice cream after our last show (we had packed a lunch, eating it while standing in one of the lines earlier). Then Leslie stopped at a gift shop and bought her usual postcard, and the kids reveled in all of the toy weapons and armor for sale. Since we weren't purchasing any of the weaponry, we let them play with it and admire it thoroughly. Then we walked back to the field of cars to drive home. It was 5:30pm when we embarked on the 2.5 hour drive home. We stopped in Les Herbiers at a Domino's for dinner--there was a kebab shop next door so I had that instead because my tummy rebels at the dairy overload in creamy cheesy pizza (French Domino's is actually way fancier and yummier than American Domino's--the crust and the sauces and the cheese, all of it. I tried it previouisly but forced myself to take care of the ole lactose issue this time). I ordered my own kebab in French for the third time on this trip-- although my sluggish brain forgot to ask for it "a emporter" (to go) and I unknowingly said oui to eating in. By myself in the restaurant. Oh well, it was filling and made my tummy feel happy.

Google routed us a weird way home and we barely made it before Rose succumbed to car sickness again. We got home after 10pm! Everyone was so tired! We did not plan anything for tomorrow on purpose, because we all need a day off, especially Jeff with his sore back. He thinks he broke a rib or two from that fall!

The kids were SO DONE with lines they were exhausted and emotionally fried by this afternoon. Even Jay was feeling weepy. Amber kept jumping and kicking and running away, Rose kept cutting people off obliviously while we walked, and Jay kept asking the most impossible questions. It was draining. We are not line people or crowds people. I am in introvert hiding.

Sotired.

Puy du Fou was more of an in-the-moment experience rather than a photo-op, so I only took a few pictures that day. Photography wasn't even allowed during the dancing horse show. It was so fun to just sit back and be completely WOWED by the spectacular spectacles.

Waiting for the Viking show. Lots of waiting.

The Viking show: vikings are chasing the shaggy cows who are chasing the soldiers.

Boat sliding downhill to the water!

That big striped boat bubbled up from underneath the water. At the end of the show, it sunk back down to the depths, but with people standing solemnly on the deck. So cool and creepy!

Amber in the medieval village. I chuckled to myself at her pink boots splashing in the small drainage river running through town, because we all know that in medieval times (and in a sad too many modern places) that drainage would not be simply innocent clean water.

There were mist-ers at convenient locations throughout the park to cool people off. While we waited for everyone to get through World War I trench, Amber played in the mist. Her hair caught a thousand tiny water droplets and for the next ten minutes she had a frizzy halo of blonde curls and shimmery water.

Sitting and playing in the dirt while we waited in a massive crowd in line for the Colosseum show.

So. Many. People.

So. Worth. It. This is the parade at the beginning of the show, with all of the animals.

Chariot race! All of my childhood Ben Hur dreams were satisfied.

This was no ordinary chariot race; it was a meticulously choreographed stunt sequence. One of the chariots had a wheel fall off with a burst of fire coming from the axle. Another chariot jumped over a fallen pillar and the cart came unhooked from the horses--the driver jumped from the fallen chariot and skidded along behind the horses on the traces for half a lap before exiting stage right. It was SO EXCITING! The crowd went wild!

Living white lion on top of the prisoner's cage.

Tiger-herding--eventually the tiger jumped up onto the railing and prowled along right by the people in the front rows of the stands. The announcement at the beginning of the show said to "please stay in your seat during the show for your safety." They weren't kidding! I mean, there was a cage arching over so the tiger wouldn't have actually gotten out into the crowd, but still. What a rush!

THREE lionesses at once seemed a bit risky, but they managed it.

The grand finale

Playground break--short lived due to overtired emotional children (not only ours either, haha)

Reveling in the well-stocked gift shop.

Souvenir selfie on our way out the front door!

My delicious meaty kebab avec frites (kebab with fries).

We stayed home the next day as planned, with one brief Jeff-and-Shaina outing to the grocery store and the Laverie Lux--a 2-washer laundromat in a tiny building situated in the parking lot of the grocery store. Convenient! Our Airbnb landlord was so sorry that her washer didn't work for us that she refunded us 50 euros! The Laverie Lux was 8 euros per load, but still she bought our good review I guess, haha.

Super essorage! That's a word Jeff and I both learned on this trip--essorage means spin, like spin cycle in the washing machine. I looked it up in our first apartment in Paris while trying to decipher all of the French words on the washing machine there.