Not many people outside France have heard of Puy du Fou*. Those international visitors who discover it, almost always become fans for life.

The 500 acre park in the Vendée region of France, packed with extraordinary attractions, refers to itself as a historical ‘theme park’ with period villages and hotels, but it has no rides** – no roller-coasters or vertigo-inducing thrill rides. It might be more accurate to describe it as a historical ‘scene park’, because what it does have is a collection of around twenty visually and technologically stunning shows on huge sets, covering history from Roman times to the 20th century, from a local and national perspective.

These shows, or ‘performances’ are unique and spectacular, and scheduled day by day during the season. Most shows happen between three to five times a day and last around 30 minutes. Most are outdoors, some indoors in enormous buildings. Some are “immersive experiences”, open continuously, where visitors walk through animated sets with a mixture of animatronic and human characters. And two are performed outdoors at night.

Most shows involve not just human performers, but a colossal menagerie of over 2,200 animals including over 1,000 birds and 200 horses, plus pigs, hens, geese, sheep, highland cattle, camels and Czechoslovakian Wolfdogs (a cross between a German Shepherd and a Carpathian wolf). So, animal welfare is an important part of Puy du Fou’s mission statement. They have an Equestrian Academy, training horses, riders and carers. And their Falconry Academy trains 100 new birds a year to appear in their shows, while concentrating on the welfare of endangered species, through supporting conservation projects around the world and re-introducing birds to their natural environment. They also train 20 new falconers each year.

The Shows

These are some of the key shows…

Outdoor Day Shows

Le Signe du Triomphe (The Sign of Triumph)
35 mins, typically twice or three times daily

Full scale Roman games in a 7,000-seat Roman coliseum. Depending where you sit, you are supporting either the Romans or the poor under-trod Gauls, with lots of chanting, booing, and thumb-waving. Naturally the Romans play dirty, forcing their Gallic prisoners to fight. Keep an eye on the centrepiece, which (spoiler alert) transforms into a full size Roman galley before your eyes! It’s all excellent fun, and, as most things ‘Puy-du-Fou’, the costumes, and props are spectacular!

 

Le Secret de la Lance (The Secret of the Lance)
29 mins, typically three to four times daily

A gripping display of horsemanship, pageantry, and battle in a medieval castle setting during the 100 Years War. The plot is that Joan of Arc has taken the best knights to fight the English, leaving a young girl to defend the castle… with a magic lance. Of course, the dastardly English turn up disguised as innocent monks and launch a surprise assault. The set itself (spoiler alert) is a major part of the show. The outer walls of the castle disappear to reveal the inner village and huge castle keep… which also moves! There’s plenty of fighting, flames, and FX before, inevitably, the power of the magic lance overcomes those duplicitous, pernicious, twisted, crazed, evil… (too much?) Anglais! 😉

 

Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantômes (The Ghost Birds Ball)
33 mins, typically three times daily, five on weekends

One of Puy du Fou’s most popular shows set in a large amphitheatre with some castle ruins. The storyline (memories of a princess who lived in the castle with her birds, are brought to life with a spell) is simply a vehicle for an amazing display of falconry, featuring some 330 birds of prey, including eagles, falcons, owls, vultures, spoonbills, a marabou stork, and a secretary bird. It’s thrilling to have some of these giant birds swooping low over your head, under the control and guidance of 30+ professional falconers.

 

Les Vikings
26 mins, typically three times daily, five on weekends

Probably one of the most photographed shows in Puy du Fou, with plenty of violent action, flames and effects. It starts off with a nice peaceful 9th century village, Saint-Philbert-le-Vieil, about to celebrate a wedding when suddenly the Vikings descend, dramatically, with one longboat sliding in from behind the 3,000 seat auditorium and a second emerging with crew from the water – a signature technical effect at Puy du Fou! Buildings are toppled and set on fire, people are set on fire, one guy is dragged behind a galloping horse! In the end all the pillaging is resolved with the miraculous appearance of Saint Philbert himself, emerging from the river.

Immersive Experiences

There are four ‘Immersive Experiences’ (although one, La Rennaissance du Chateau, is temporarily closed). These are simple walkthroughs; no show times, you just turn up and walk through, typically taking between 15 – 20 mins. Sometimes when the park is busy there can be a long queues, and the experience can be a lot less “immersive” when you are sharing it with a crowd of people!

What’s clever about these experiences, is that the characters are a mix of animatronic & passive mannequins, with live actors. Sometimes it’s not easy to tell which is which. For example the Captain’s cabin on La Pérouse has four characters in it and I’m not sure which are the dummies! Apparently the cast double up roles, so the officer who chats to you in the galley of La Pérouse might also be the soldier who runs past you shouting “alarm!” in the trenches of Verdun later in the day.

Le Premier Royaume (The First Kingdom)
Continuous indoor show

A chance to learn about the life of Clovis, who, while the Roman Empire was collapsing in the 5th century, became King of the Franks and created the first kingdom of France. The trail takes visitors through his father’s scriptorium and into the bowels of the earth where they encounter creatures from Norse mythology and Valhalla, then through forges and chalk caverns where he was crowned; all of this brought to life by high tech 3D video mapping, 360° sound and smells. (I didn’t see this one.)

 

 

Le Mystère de La Pérouse (The Mystery of Lapérouse)
Continuous indoor show

Jean François de Galaup, Comte de Lapérouse, or simply “Lapérouse” for short, was an explorer and scientist like Capt. James Cook. In 1785 he was put in charge of a scientific expedition around the world, in the wake of and building on the work of Cook, particularly in the Pacific, where he and his ships disappeared.

The trail takes visitors through his study, the dockside where provisions were bought and loaded and then through the lower decks of his ship, crammed with provisions. As the voyage gets underway, the ship begins to fill with the exotic flora and fauna he and his men collected on the way. Before long the ship begins roll in heavy seas. Luckily for us, the effect is re-created by a rolling hull – the walls and ceiling – synchronised with views of stormy seas through the portholes and gun ports, and the occasional deluge of water… so no seasick pills needed! Live actors supplement the mannequins & animatronics as officers and crew, and the last poignant scene is a silted and decaying cabin on the ocean floor.

 

Les Amoureux de Verdun (The Lovers of Verdun)
Continuous indoor show

A trail through the WW1 trenches of Verdun, so it is feels cramped and is continuously loud and noisy with explosions and the sounds and vibrations of warfare. It’s also very dark. As with the other immersives, the characters you encounter are a mix of animatronics (eg a wounded soldier moving under the sheet on a stretcher) and live actors.

Indoor Shows

Le Dernier Panache (The Last Plume)
34 mins, typically four shows daily, seven on weekends
Indoor show

The title is difficult to translate. The panache is the feathered plume on an officer’s hat which gives him… well, “panache”! In this case, the show follows the fortunes of a heroic French naval officer in the late 18th Century, through a series of 20 scenes played out on six stages in a 360° theatre. What’s different about this theatre is that it’s the 2,400-seat auditorium that moves, not the stages. The whole audience will track, sometimes following characters in front of them, from one scene to the next.

It’s an impressive show. I met a local who lives nearby. He loves the show so much he has been coming almost every week since it opened in 2017!

 

Le Mime et l’Etoile (The Mime and the Star)
28 mins, typically five times daily, eight on weekends
Indoor show

This is a new show for Puy du Fou, and it has been winning them awards. It starts with the audience (up to 2,000) watching as the actors and technicians prepared to shoot a black and white movie in 1914. As things get going, the lovers (the mime artist and the movie star) pass through fast moving black & white streets, characters and scenes, while they themselves are in bright yellow and red.

The moving backdrops and the travelator tracks on the floor make the action flow and it seems like you are watching one long 28 minute tracking shot. The technology behind it is state-of-the-art, combining laser projection mapping with lighting and spatialised sound, all synced in real time with the movements of the sets and characters on stage. Technically it is amazing. Emotionally, it’s great fun and quite moving. This video explains the extraordinary production process. It’s in French but even if that’s a problem it’s still worth watching. 

 

The Night Shows

Puy du Fou has two outdoor night shows…

Les Noces de Feu (The Organs of Fire)
30 mins, Starts at 21.30 on most nights during the season, except when La Cinéscénie is performing..

This show, set on, and in, a lake is like a 3D ‘son et lumiere’ set to music… mostly popular classical, performed and arranged by the virtuoso sisters, Camille and Julie Bertollet. It starts and revolves around two characters – a violinist and a pianist who emerge from the waters with their instruments in electroluminescent costumes. In fact everything emerges, illuminated, from the waters; a huge bandstand, a coach pulled by swans, 8-metre tall columns with dancing/diving footmen on top, and 10 – 15m tall animated fountains! Meanwhile the organs at either end of the lake, belch flames while the 30 actors and underwater stuntmen dance around the huge underwater sets in their electroluminescent costumes, with some 7,000 spectators watching from the sides of the lake.

It will leave your mind humming the music and your inner-engineer wondering “How the **** do they do that?!?!”

 

Finally…

La Cinéscénie
90 mins, 28 night performances a year

This is the biggest night time show in the world. It’s what Puy du Fou is most famous for, and where the whole thing started.

Puy du Fou’s founder, Philippe De Villiers came across the ruined Château de Puy du Fou and its estate in June 1977. He decided there and then he wanted to stage a dramatic re-enactment of the history of the Vendée in the grounds, using the crumbing château as a backdrop. A year later the first Cinéscénie performance took place with a cast of over 600 volunteers.

Now, La Cinéscénie plays out seven centuries of Vendée history on its 23-hectare stage below the Château with 2,500 actors, performers, dancers, and volunteers, plus hundreds of animals, 3D mapped projections, autonomous drones, and plenty of pyrotechnics, in front of a massive 13,000 seat open-air auditorium.

It is a true spectacle on an epic scale.

The Rest of the Park

What else is there to see and do at Puy du Fou? Well, you can just enjoy the woods and herbicide-free gardens, tended by 45 gardeners. Since 1978, when the park opened, the woodland area has more than doubled in size to almost 500 acres. And you can explore the wildlife – many of the park’s animals are on display around the park in their cages, such as the large birds in the falconry centre.

Environmental responsibility is a big thing with Puy du Fou. From renewal of waste water and use of rainwater, to their efficient control of electricity, waste management, and wildlife release programme, the park, which became the first Green Globe certified eco-friendly park in France in 2012, works hard at its green credentials.

The park has four small villages recreated from different periods in history, and each has its own trade workshops and shops (there are 18 skilled craftsmen working in the park), taverns and food outlets.

• Saint-Philbert-le Vieil (9th century) is the continuation of the village you see being pillaged by Les Vikings. Here there are blacksmiths at work and various food outlets.
• Font-Rognou (13th century) has a restaurant, a tavern, a Romanesque chapel, and craftsmen, such as a cooper, a sculpture, and a baker making and selling their goods.
• Chasseloup (18th century) has a leatherworker, glassmaker, earthenware maker, a bookbinder and gilder, a sadler and an illuminator, who decorates and illustrates texts on parchments, all making and selling their wares. In addition, one of the park’s two performance restaurants, Le Relais de Poste, is here, where the waiters/performers encourage much singing and carousing, and an 16-metre high Grand Carillion (bell tower) in the centre of the village puts on a 10 minute performance of bell-ringing and acrobatics five times a day.
• Le Bourg Berard (20th century) with its main square and shops (mostly toys & souvenirs), is inspired by the Art Nouveau style and oozes “Belle Epoque”! It has a couple of restaurants, and the park’s second performance restaurant, Le Café de la Madelon, where 740 diners watch a cabaret performed by singers, dancers and waiters.

In total the park has 26 eateries and 8 bars.

Staying Over

Like most large theme parks, Puy du Fou has its own hotels, five of them and a logis in an area called La Cité Nocturne on the edge of the park. Naturally, they too are historically themed.

• La Villa Gallo-Romaine – A huge Roman villa with a large courtyard and Mediterranean garden
• Le Grand Siècle – A recreation of Louis XIV’s own private 17th century château with extravagant decorations and French-style gardens.
• Le Camp du Drap d’Or – A recreation of the famous “Field of the Cloth of Gold” where France’s Francis I and England’s Henry VIII held a 17-day summit meeting in June 1520. Accommodation is in glamorous medieval tents.
• La Citadelle – A medieval castle with a maze of corridors, lots of Tudor-style furniture, and a medicinal garden in the courtyard.
• Îles de Clovis – A village of fifty 9th century huts built on stilts, with thatched roofs and half-timbering, set among nine man-made lakes (stocked with mosquito larvae-eating carp).
• Le Logis de Lescure – An 18th century Vendée house with just four themed suites.

Map & App

Puy du Fou is huge and confusing… and French (there’s not much English signage around)! Every visitor gets a map*** with a mass of detail on show schedules, eateries, and other points of interest.

These are printed daily so they are accurate for the day you are there, and throw forward to the next day too. They even have the day’s weather forecast. It’s an impossible amount of information to easily take in, especially when, for much of the day you are hurrying to get to the next show that you want to see.

Enter The App!

The Puy du Fou app is a godsend because it simplifies everything. Not only does it list all the information on the paper map about shows and eateries, but since it knows what the time is and where you are, it can tell you which shows have closed their entry gates, which shows are next, how long it will take you to get there, and which direction to walk! Excellent!

What’s more, the app is the key to understanding what’s going on. Most shows have a mixture of narration and actor lip-synching to the script. Ie they are recorded. The app’s Live Translation feature let’s you listen simultaneously in English, Spanish, German and Dutch.

And it also provides a free audio description service to allow blind and partially-sighted visitors to enjoy the major shows.

It has other functions too.

It can help you create your own schedule by selecting the shows you’d like to see and the times you’d like to see them – the app sorts them in your chosen order and tells you when the doors open.

You can also use it to pre-order ‘Click & Collect’ meals from the food outlets.

 

 

Puy du Fou goes International

Why is Puy du Fou suddenly coming to the world’s attention?

Until now, Puy du Fou has viewed itself as a uniquely French theme park, marketed, pretty much exclusively, to a French audience. International visitors are, and always have been, very welcome but there’s been little outreach.

Now, Puy du Fou has international, even global, ambitions. So it’s keen to tell the world what it is and what it does.

In 2019 Puy du Fou launched an 80-minute grand night show, El Sueño de Toledo (like La Cinéscénie) in Toledo, Spain, and in 2021 opened the gates to its new 70-acre park, Puy du Fou España with 7 day shows focused on Spanish history and legend, plus 28 bars and restaurants.

The interesting thing about Puy du Fou is that right from the start all their shows have been conceived, designed, fabricated, directed and operated by them, in-house – no outside contractors or production companies. Puy du Fou is the production company, and now they are exporting that expertise.

In 2020 Puy du Fou were brought in by the Dutch theme park Efteling (My longtime favourite theme park, till now) to re-invigorate the Efteling’s main show, Raveleijn, which had been running since 2013. Since then the Franco-Dutch team of 50 artists and technicians, 16 horses and 40 birds with their Puy du Fou falconers, have been performing 1,200 shows per year (up to 6 per day).

The grand scale night show Kynren at Bishop Auckland, County Durham, was developed in collaboration with Puy du Fou. It opened in July 2016 and has all the hallmarks of a Puy du Fou Cinéscénie-style show. It tells the story of 2,000 years of English history, myths, and legends in a 90-minute show performed on a 7.5-acre stage with a cast and crew of around 1,000 local volunteers.

Two years ago Ouy du Fou agreed a deal to create and operate an immersive show about Cherokee history in Sevier County, Tennessee.

And…

In May this year, they opened their first project in Shanghai, China.

SAGA City of Light is billed as “the world’s largest immersive theatre experience”. It’s a 2-hour walkthrough experience in a massive 46,000 m² building, recreating Shanghai in the 1930s, with 50 scenes and over 150 performers. What’s clever about it is that, with 26 possible routes through the experience, visitors can interactively influence their own experience by deciding which door to exit a room through. Thus, no two visits are likely to be the same. The experience is described here.

This is only the beginning of Puy du Fou’s ambition in China. Puy du Fou President, Nicolas de Villiers, has said the live show in Shanghai is a foretaste for Chinese visitors. They have plans to build multiple theme parks in other Chinese cities.

That pattern – create a large show then build the park – is soon to be repeated closer to home. Right now, Puy du Fou has its sights on a 400-acre site (⅘ the size of Puy du Fou in France) just off the M40 in Oxfordshire two miles from Bicester.

The formula will be the same; a focus on English history, folklore and legend. I think we can safely predict shows and immersives on Boadicea, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I with perhaps spin-off references to Walter Raleigh, Drake and the Spanish Armada. Who else? Churchill? Brunel?

Maybe though, Henry V, the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Nelson, might prove awkward for French sensibilities! 😉

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* Puy du Fou. Where does the name come from? It was the name of the Château that founder, Philippe De Villiers, discovered in June 1977. What does it mean? Well, a ‘Puy’ is the word for a high place or hill especially in the Auvergne, where it refers to conical volcanic peaks. And ‘Fou’ doesn’t mean ‘mad’ (the standard translation), it’s an old word for a ‘beech tree’. So, ‘Beech Tree Hill’ would be a reasonable translation.

** Actually, they do have a ride. Though it’s not in the park. Puy du Fou has a glamorous private train, sumptuously decorated in the style of the ‘Belle Epoque’, equipped with two dining carriages and a lounge/bar carriage. It takes up to 30 passengers in 15 staterooms on a 6-day/4,000-Km Grand Tour of France’s historic palaces and classic sites. It’s not cheap.

*** For some reason, probably to maximise the scale, Puy du Fou maps are orientated South to North. It’s a little confusing to say the least!

Declaration: I was a guest of Puy du Fou.