Although Puy du Fou is described as a theme park, it’s probably not the type of theme park you’ve ever visited before! There are no roller coasters or log flumes, no dodgems or ferris wheels. In their place you will find dozens of historical shows depicting historical events, mostly from the history of France, but also from elsewhere in Europe. All the shows have some basis in history, although they include various stories to create a unique experience for visitors.
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Where is Puy du Fou?
Just an hour by car from Nantes, you’ll find le Puy du Fou, hidden by woodland in the French countryside. It’s in the North West of France, within the Vendee compartment. Its location is just 60 minutes from the Atlantic coast.
The ancient woodland that surrounds the park is over 2.5 acres you will find the park tranquil, with many quiet pockets of nature. The amusement park has easy connections to other french cities and the United Kingdom, make it perfect to visit when you next head to France.
How To Get To Puy du Fou
It is possible to fly into Nantes airport (the nearest to Puy du Fou) and then book a private taxi to Puy du Fou, around 120 Euros. Or hire a car from the airport if this works out cheaper for your trip.
Alternatively you can take the bus or train as far Angers and then the Puy du Fou shuttle bus from Angers train station to the park – this does require the bus to be reserved in advance. Angers train station is easily accessible by trains from all over France, so you can easily combine your visit to Puy du Fou park with other locations.
Best Puy du Fou Shows
Puy du Fou is a multi-awards winning park, often voted as the best amusement park in France. It’s perfect for the whole family, with many adults visiting without children too. You’ll have an amazing time with all the great shows on offer, particularly enjoying the incredible special effects!
Le Signe du Triomphe
My children voted this the best show when we visited Puy du Fou in 2024. It’s a Roman spectacular set in an amphitheatre of the Roman Empire. You watch as Gallic prisoners are brought out before the Roman governor and a love story between a Roman and Gaul leads the show. It starts off with a series of contests, from hand to hand combat, to Roman chariot races, finishing with a burning boat and the governor running off in his underwear! The pyrotechnic effects and stunts are fantastic and certainly get everyone‘s attention!
Les Vikings
This was actually my favourite show, we even went to see it twice! Set in the Middle Ages in a small village, the locals are celebrating a fantastic wedding scene. The Vikings then enter and attack the village admits some excellent pyrotechnics and water scenes! The story ends with a bishop emerging from the water and both Vikings and villagers settle their differences. This spectacle is meant to compress several hundred years into the one show. As Vikings did raid the French Villages, causing havoc, but later converting to Christianity and bringing peace to the people once more.
Le Secret de la Lance
This was a fantastic show for the theatrical spectacles, including excellent equestrian stunts. The historical reenactments of this show includes Joan of Arc giving her lance to the lady who is left to defend to her castle alone. She then chases away the invading army with the help of guards and knights. But the favourite parts have to be the people walking up and down the castle walls and the jousting at the start. If you enjoy watching sword fights, then this is the best show for you!
Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes
This is one of the major shows that everyone visiting the historical theme park will want to visit at least once! The story is two women who once lived in the castle, whose ruins are part of the stage area (it’s a real castle ruin!) reminisce on their lives in the castle. At each part of the show there are many birds flying around, mostly birds of prey, but also cranes and spoonbills too. The finale is amazing with hundreds of birds flying all around, others diving down from a balloon overhead or flying with a microlight. Note – if it’s wet they don’t have the balloon or microlight displays, so try and plan this show for when it’s not raining!
Top tip: Sit at the top of the stands so you can get really close views of the birds as they fly right over your head to the handlers!
Le Dernier Panache
The setting of this show is state of the art technology in itself. The théâtre des géants is a 7500m square venue with a track system that allows the audience to revolve around the theatre. It’s a 360 degree rotating show!
A story of a young boy who started out as an unwilling sailor, who actually fell in love with sailing, taking part in the American war of Independence. His life dramatically changes in the French Revolution, where he had withdrawn to his land in the French countryside. But local peasants ask him to help fight the French Republicans, who leads and fights to the death. The final scene is a bit upsetting, where he is shot by a firing squad, so consider if your child is sensitive to this type of scene.
Le Mime et L’Etoile
This is one of the big shows we didn’t manage to see. However, many adults consider it one of the best shows! Set in 1914 you return the beginning of cinema to witness the shooting of a black and white film. Although it sounds an interesting part of history, it’s not something my children are particular interested in. So we skipped this in favour of other shows.
Mousquetaire de Richelieu
Beginning the show with musketeers fighting and leading on to to flamenco dancers and capering horses. This is certainly a dramatic show! Although it involves some sword duels, the majority of the show seems to focus on the dancing. Which is rather impressive, but the children had hoped for more dramatic stage fighting.
Emotion Pass – Is It Worth It? If you can afford an Emotion Pass (approx £25pp/day extra) then I’d go for it. This guarantees you a seat in the Emotion pass area (best seats!) until just 10 minutes before the show starts (you also have a separate shorter queue). It means you can have less time between shows and still get good seats. If you don’t have a pass then you may need to be there 45 minutes before the show starts to get a good seat.
Les Noces de feu
This is one of the 2 night shows at Puy du Fou. Les Noces de Feu is the shorter night show, on a different night to the longer La Cinescenie. Following the beautiful wedding of the violinist muse and virtuoso pianist, this is an incredible show! With buildings, pillars and people emerging from the depths of the lake the young couples wedding with music, light and dancing takes centre stage. It’s a rather creative and spectacular show!
La Cinéscénie
This is a huge set for a grand night show lasting an hour and a half. It can only be seen in the summer, outwith this you can watch Les Noces de Feu only. As we visited in the October school holidays this show wasn’t available. Which is a shame, as it looks spectaclar! One of the huge spectacles over a lake with thousands of actors, excellent lighting and even fireworks to finish! It truly is an unforgettable experience. You do need to make a specific show booking to gain seats on this show.
Smaller Puy du Fou Shows
There are several immersive experiences at Puy du Fou, these can be very loud and the English translations do not work. If you children are interested in the historical period they still may enjoy the experience, we got the gist of what was happening in la Mystere de la Perouse. We only visited the two immersive experiences as we were limited for time, so I am only covering these two below.
Aside the immersive shows there are also some short 10 minute shows around the park, including a giant clock with musical bells and robotic musicians popping out of windows!
Le Mystére de la Pérouse
The explorer La Perouse leaves the Port of Brest to sail on the greatest expedition ever in 1785. They discover many exciting animal and plant species, hoping to bring them back to Versailles in 1789. However, the ships are lost and never return. It was until 1980 that we found out what actually happened to the Mystery of La Perouse.
You walk through the sets and into a ship, which may put you off balance a little. The walls of the ‘ship’ are moving to make you feel like you’re at sea, but with the dim light it makes it feel like you are moving! You can spot the different animals and plants they have discovered and then move onto Alaska where the air turns very cold inside, soon there are shouts and screams as the boat has been shipwrecked. Water is pouring onto the set and splashing overhead as you witness the ship sinking – the end to the mystery! It is definitely a rather spectacular walk through show, although it would be better if there were some boards explaining what was going on or the translation worked.
Les Amoureux de Verdun
We were less keen on this immersive show. Again, the English translation didn’t work and so we weren’t entirely sure what was going on. Apparently there was a love story via letters, but we didn’t see much evidence of this. There were a lot of loads bangs and explosions as this is set in WWI. My 13 year old wasn’t keen on this as it was fairly loud and a bit too overwhelming for him. Our 10 year old wasn’t so bothered, but it really wasn’t clear what was happening, aside it being a war! If you know some French then you may enjoy this, but if not it could be a little disappointing.
Period Villages and Crafts People
Puy du Fou does not only have shows to visit and watch. There are also 4 period villages to explore, each with their own artisans, shops and crafts people. The historic villages are all from slightly different time periods and worth visiting between shows.
the 18th century Le Village Chasseloup has a large number of crafts people at work, from blacksmiths and clog makers to glass artists. It’s a great one to explore and enjoy the different crafts, plus buy a few souvenirs. The medieval Font-Rgnou is a medieval village and also has plenty of artisans to visit along its narrow streets. You can also find restaurants and fast food outlets in each of the villages too.
For younger children there are also some other interesting areas, including a play area, labyrinth and areas to see the animals from some of the shows.
Is The Puy du Fou App useful?
We used the Puy du Fou app a LOT during our visit. The simultaneous translation worked brilliantly in all the big shows we visited. You do need more than one device if there are a few of you watching the show with the translation. As I only have the one phone I gave the kids one earbud each to listen to the English translation, however I didn’t actually hear it myself! However, I could still work out what was going on without the translation, as the actors are very good and it’s fairly obvious what is happening, even if I didn’t get all the small details! If you would like to have a translation each I recommend bringing other devices so you can all listen (my kids don’t have phones of their own to use).
Planning the daytime shows can take a fair bit of work. The show time change each day, so you need to have an idea of what you would like to see! The app comes in very handy for this, simply click on the ‘Plan your Visit’ button and the app can work out how to fit in the shows you would like to see! I highly recommend downloading it just for the translation and planning functions.
Puy du Fou Accommodation
There are 6 accommodation options at Puy du Fou. Choose from roman or medieval hotels or lodges and glamping tents. There is a whole range of accommodation on site!
We stayed at La Citadelle, which is a castle set in the Middle Ages. Our room was actually in the turret of the castle entrance, which is pretty cool! La Citadelle has its own restaurant for breakfast and dinner (book ahead to guarantee a table). We had a family room with separate rooms for the adults (double bed) and children (bunk beds). A shower room and sink, plus a separate toilet. The toilet was a novelty as it looked like the wooden long drop style we have seen in many Scottish castles over the years!
The styling of each of the hotels is excellent, it certainly ties in well with the rest of the theme park and makes for an unforgettable stay.
Eating at Puy du Fou
There are plenty of options to eat at Puy du Fou. You can find a variety of take away food outlets, serving pizzas, baguettes, waffles and crepes. Or visit a sit-down restaurant if you have more time. There are several sit-down restaurants around the park, open for both lunch and dinner. Check your app for locations of each of the restaurants.
We had dinner at our hotel one night, which was a fantastic buffet of food. The following night we had reservations for dinner at Le Café de la Madelon. It’s a show restaurant with a set meal, you can eat whilst being entertained by a wedding that goes wrong! The waiters are all involved too, so expect to see your waiter dancing on stage inbetween serving meals.
The waiter we had could speak English well and checked if there were any allergies or dietary requirements first. As I’m pescatarian I had a slightly different main meal to the others. Although there was no English translation to the show, it was still very clear what was going on!
Read more about other fantastic French holidays with kids:
- Spend a week cruising along the Canal du Midi in a canal boat, navigating the locks and exploring.
- Explore Puy du Fou, France’s award winning historical theme park!
- Find out what to do in Bordeaux with kids this year!
- Enjoy a multi activity holiday with the family in the French Pyrenees.
- Stay close to the sea at Cote d’Argent campsite in air conditioned homes, with a great pool area for kids.
- Spend 48 hours in Paris with the kids, there is a lot to see!
- Climb the Eiffel Tower with the kids, find out what to expect!
- Stay at the Novotel Gare Montparnasse in Paris, a great family hotel
- Enjoy a skiing holiday for beginners in France, find out where to go!
- Stay in Les Roc De Tours apartments in the Haute Savoie region of France whilst skiing.
- Get the authentic French ski resort experience at Grand Bornand.
- Explore the beautiful ski resort of Areches-Beaufort, with it’s many runs that are excellent for newbies as well as experienced skiers.
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