France s'il vous plaît: Puy du Fou

I have been mustering up my best descriptive writing skills for the past few days in an attempt to explain what I experienced Friday night. Please understand that whatever I am about to write you need to imagine it x10 because the words I know in our English vocabulary do not capture the grand spectacle I witnessed.

Everyone loves a good war story - usually filled with action, happiness, sadness, love and drama; most of the time told through books, movies or a play...right? Well at least that is what I thought until Friday night. Puy du Fou definition: A play that is bulked up on steroids then decided to take acid on the Fourth of July. After getting your ticket punched you come to the side of what looks like Autzen Stadium. After purchasing a nice to-go class of red wine for 1 Euro at the concession stand I made my way to our section with my lovely newfound friends. As I walked out of the cement hall of the stadium I came upon a dream-like scene. In front of me was a large circular shaped lake surrounded by trees and little cottages on both sides and directly across the lake was a HUGE castle; all lit up by moon light. It took my breath away for half a second until the crowd behind me urged me forward. At this point my curiosity scale rocketed from about a 2 to a 10, I made my way to my seat increasingly excited about what in the world I was about to watch.

It started with surround sound instrumental music through a sound system I have never heard before in my life. It was almost like the orchestra was sitting right next to me playing each instrument clearly and individually. An old man slowly made his way across the grassy area between the stadium and the lake; once he got to the other side he started telling the story in a wise grandpa-like voice. Over the next two hours 300 actors and actresses, sheep, horses, pigs, ducks and music communicated a heroic story of a man who led his village in overcoming an enemy and triumphantly restoring peace and happiness to their village. The interesting thing about this was that the entire dialogue was in French - Duh - so I really had no idea what was being said other than a few phrases here and there. Since I was not able to understand the words the story was entirely communicated through the tone of the music or what the actors and actresses were doing. A very surreal experience indeed.

Even now, only a few days later, my memory of what I saw is started to fade just like a dream. There was so much detail and choreography. You could feel the passion that the actors and actresses had towards the history and the story. There were knights that rode in on real horses, the towns people herded real sheep and pigs, there was real fire in the windows of the castle during the battles. Its like when your a kid watching t.v. and you wish so badly that you could step into the t.v. and be a part of the show - well that is what I did and it was everything a little kid's heart could ever desire.

At the end of the show the last 10-15 minutes is a huge celebration. There were fireworks bigger than any you have ever seen on the Fourth of July and the lake had fountains that were lit up with all different colored lights and shot up in many different designs. Unfortunately my camera was not able to capture the images very well so some of the pictures below are from Google and some are from my camera.