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Our day in Puy Du Fou and some other ramblings
posted Tuesday, 23 October 2007
I noticed just now that my spell check changed some of my spelling...which is usually a good thing, I am always in too much of a rush as I type to check my spelling, and will be honest I am not the greatest speller to begin with. However my "Campari umbrella moments" was changed to some word that when I tried to fix it didn't let me... But a Campari moment is clearly that...a wonderful meal to be had, shared, enjoyed under some Campari umbrella in some part of the World!!! I came up with this expression on the Island of Santorini…I was on a cliff under a Campari umbrella and ended up joining a group on a yacht to sail around the islands…a book in itself, what an adventure. Just a few days ago I found in my attic a postcard from the group written to me a year later as they sailed around Sardinia…they wrote, “still looking for a Campari umbrella for you”… I have prepped the kiddos with school work to keep them busy and hope to catch up on some of my blog today as stuff is still fresh in my mind. I really want to get to Italy for I suspect that is where most would go if they could follow in these footsteps and the campsites we found there were fabulous and anyone could pull off camping in such a style that they offered I have no doubt.My intention was to have the whole trip blogged by now…I think I had shared that I totally underestimated the time needed to unpack the family. Since I home school I have been busy starting the kiddos back up in their new school year and researching some of the things we were exposed to on the trip that we knew little to nothing about. This comes to you from the back porch with background music of the dogs barking at golfers as they go by…you would think by now these guys would know that we live on a golf course and that golfers in the yard searching for balls and driving by the trail are standard place around here, anywho wonderful background music it is not. I have some cute dogs but without a doubt they have to have the most obnoxious barks in the world. They all did great while we were gone and Sandy still has no signs of the “aggressive” cancer which seems to surprise everyone and no sign of the lump having come back that was removed. This is great news. Spinnaker did great and the pet sitter said she fell only twice which is wonderful. Spinnaker loves the pet sitter who throws the ball for her. Spinnaker is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever retrieving fool!!!!!! The boys are trying their hardest to set up a jousting range in our backyard…Tristan seemed disappointed that dad and I have not yet stepped in to help them like we said we would…but they look so darn cute doing it themselves that I would like to have them spend their energy trying to figure it out and working together before we do. I reminded them if we had bought them a castle (they are getting one under the tree) before now they wouldn’t have made their own out of boxes, rocks and even cork There is something huge to be said for this stage, and it is a stage I don’t want to miss by purchasing an item before they have exercised their architect abilities. With no input from us the boys have gathered bricks and stacked them five high…tied (and taped) two rather large sticks resembling a cross together. Cut out a red tunic from construction paper and put an ice-cream container on its head to be their jousting partner, it really is cute to see. So this major interest in jousting came from Puy Du Fou…Puy Du Fou is a medieval park in France about 3 hours drive from Paris…a must for anyone with children anywhere in the area to go to!!!! I forgot if I had shared and lack the time to check…but there is minimal commercialism there, even the Coke machines have no Coke sign on them. Puy Du Fou is a breath of fresh air.There are five wonderful shows they put on and you have to calculate your time well to see them all…we missed only one “The Musketeers”. We only had one day there and I really wish that we had more. There is a Knight’s show, Musketeer show, Viking show and Gladiator show…everything my children LOVE. The best moments for me were the Falcon show. It’s not really fair to say for the whole park is magical but the Falcon show had me fighting off tears in my eyes it was that beautiful!!!!! It was held in what resembled an old ruin and men (and women) dressed in the traditional leather falconer outfits had falcons, owls, vultures, bald eagles performing task that I never would have thought possible. You turn to your left and there would be a big fat owl perched beside you waiting for his cue…look forward and a falcon flies right over your head, look to the right and a falcon is flying and landing on it’s trainers arm…then behind you are five ugly vultures perched and staring…. Puy Du Fou was so beautifully done that I would swear that Cirque de Soleil has some arm in it.You tube has several clips on it, small videos don’t do it justice but the one I shared is the best one I saw to actually witness the Viking show. How can one even describe it to one one millionth of its worth.The video I had shared shows a good shot of the Viking show…in it they have a ship come out of the water…the Vikings are invading with such force…on the ship as it rises are the Vikings!!!! I assume regulators/scuba gear are in their mouths under water but they come up with such drama that it was clearly breathtaking. My father had met the man who built the trebuchet for Puy Du Fou and this is how we even knew about it. If you ever go make certain to get the English speaking headphones so you can follow the stories, the park is not done with any translations…only these headphones will provide it. I respect that, it’s their History and it is obvious they want to keep it very French. We bought the headphones and I surrendered them back after the first show (Knights) due to static and thinking I could follow the stories well on my own. I regret turning them back in, and I wish I had kept them. I was lucky to have met a gal who I adored instantly, she explained many of the stories on a level I would not have understood had she not. My boys were playing with their swords in an open place right before the 4th show (Gladiators) and a little boy of 6 or 7 came running up to them with his sword…he was in full ambush mode (just like my children) and he galloped right in there in such a way I wouldn’t have even noticed if he just added himself to the family right then…he had my boys exact interest in all things medieval. I had not seen one American the whole day and can’t even say I noticed any English speaking folks in that one day. I instantly shouted to my guys to be careful with this boy since communication was going to be difficult…all of a sudden his mom appeared beside me and in an English accent (from England) said, “ahhhh he is asking for it….don’t worry if he was to charge like that he needs to be able to handle the response”. I loved her she thought exactly how I did and she and I just sat back and enjoyed watching the kids in their tournament without any words being passed among them for minutes. We stayed together for the Gladiator show and the Viking show and she filled me in on parts of the stories that I was missing due to language. She lives there and Puy Du Fou seized her in the same way it did me…I really liked this gal and hope our paths will cross again in this great big World of ours. Puy Du Fou did a wonderful lunch for us and we ate in what appeared to be a castle, we were served a medieval meal and the waiters were in medieval dress…chicken was served on a sword…a tournament was held inside and they got audience participation by dividing ½ of the hall to support the red suited knight and the other to support the blue suited knight. It was so much fun!!!!!! The chicken drumsticks served on swords excited my tribe. We had arrived at Puy Du Fou at 4:00am…the parking lot was filled with campers in one section and I guess you can stay for free there…we pulled up in between them and fell asleep for 4 ½ hours…the kiddos had long been out and when we woke the gates were a short walk away and the excitement filled the air. I almost forget to share a special treat that we saw that day…our first show was the Knight show, as we watched overhead (nothing to do with the show before us) went a man on a small, very small motorized craft with simple wings and what I thought at the time looked like a bike with wings. Flying with him were geese!!!!! I honestly could not believe it, and do not know if he was with Puy Du Fou or if he just flies over it. I had never witnessed such a sight and it literally brought me to my feet during the show…others pointed it out but it impressed me beyond words. So we had been home two days when friends brought us over a movie to watch…we had not shared this experience and imagine my surprise when we found the movie to be called “Fly Away Home” and it had this same set up in the movie…shocking!!!! Puy Du Fou had a lot of literature hung up sharing how they are a bird sanctuary so he might have been with them. While Puy Du Fou escapes commercialism they do have a very stocked “store” at the end, unlike Disney you can avoid it… you can easily escape it, but my obsession with European toys had me sniffing thru there…An old log served as the boys castle for our whole trip, it was a neat log found in Belgium on our first morning was carted along with it’s rolly pollies and all thru out our trip. That log got so much attention as it was pulled out to serve its purpose with the our Shleich characters. At Puy Du Fou we got the boys some more plastic figures and more Schleich characters (love them), we had our swords and shields but if not they had them there. I stopped in my tracks over some fabulous Medieval tunics they had on display…I made a mental note of them…they were clearly not in our budget while on the trip but I lusted over them…We would see them later in Florence at a huge toy store and coming home after many searches I found them at a wonderful SAHM (Stay at Home Mom) shop where I like to give my business to… Carey owns this precious store and knows this line of product very well…she too is the mother of knights and knew exactly how I was feeling trying to put together the correct outfits. While browsing her shop I fell in love with some felt head pieces and she is going to make Bronwyn and Aynsleigh a custom head piece for them in hopes that I can escape purchasing expensive knight outfits for Bronwyn. Anyway I wanted to share this line of tunics…they are beautiful!!!! I also wanted to share Carey’s site for those interested in these and other special goodies…she has worked real hard with me to get the correct order in place and to make sure my knights have what they need, she understood a mama on a mission… Fantashion http://fantashion.de/fantashion_shop/index.php?cat=c122_Outfits.html&XTCsid=fa44045dc79d1c809955f5782a88acd3 Carey’s site – Quiet Hours Toys (love the name) she is authorized to sell Fantashionhttp://www.quiethourstoys.com/ Carey’s blog in early September shows some cute felted headbands…http://quiethourstoys.wordpress.com/ From Puy Du Fou we were off to a wonderful Prehistoric day that included the Lascaux caves, prehistoric museums and all things prehistoric… So much to share and hope to have that up today… Sadly we missed two things on our itinerary (and I might have shared this already)...but before hitting Puy Du Fou we were to see the Bayeaux Tapestry and the stones of Carnac...there will be a next time!!!!!