Category: Off the Beaten Track in France

Puy du Fou, Arles Bullfighting, and Getting Pickpocketed in Paris

Cas McIntyre has been to France seven times since 2004, and she speaks French well enough to handle real conversations, not just order coffee. On episode 603 of the podcast, she joins me to talk about some of the more unusual things that happen when you travel in France: a historical theme park, a bullfighting festival in Arles, and a far less fun story about getting pickpocketed in Paris.

Puy du Fou tips for English speakers

Puy du Fou is a historical theme park in the Vendée, not far from Nantes and Angers. It's not Disneyland. There are no rides. Instead, you get massive outdoor shows: Vikings storming a village from a boat that rises out of a lake, gladiators and lions in a Roman amphitheater, a quiet World War I scene told through a soldier's letters to his fiancée. Cas spent two and a half days there and still didn't see everything.

Here's the catch, and it's the most important of my Puy du Fou tips for English speakers: everything is in French. There's no audio guide in English, not even at the evening dinner show. If you don't speak French, you'll still enjoy the spectacle, the costumes, and the stunts, but you'll miss the storytelling. Cas calls it full immersion. Her French-speaking friend followed the shows fine. Her non-French-speaking girlfriend struggled.

A second tip: getting there without a car takes planning. Cas took the train to Nantes or Angers, then a bus to the park. It's doable, but budget extra time for it. And keep your expectations in check on the history itself. Puy du Fou tells a favorable, romanticized version of the French past. The Revolution barely gets a mention. Go for the spectacle, not a balanced history lesson.

If you're putting together your own list of Puy du Fou tips for English speakers, the short version is this: bring a French speaker if you can, plan for a full day or two, and treat it as theater first, history lesson second.

Arles and the Cocarde d'Or

While in Arles, Cas stumbled onto the Cocarde d'Or, a Camargue bullfighting festival held around July 1st in the Roman amphitheater. This isn't Spanish-style bullfighting. Young men called raseteurs try to snatch a ribbon, the cocarde, from between the horns of a young Camargue bull, without getting gored. The bulls aren't killed. They go home afterward, considerably more annoyed than when they arrived.

Cas watched a raseteur get flipped by a bull, and at one point a bull jumped the barricade and the crowd scattered. She called it a spectacle unlike anything she'd seen, and she'd go back, with one caveat: be comfortable with the animal welfare side of it before you buy a ticket.

Pickpocketed in Paris

Not every story from this episode is fun. Cas got pickpocketed going through a turnstile in Paris while juggling a huge suitcase, a backpack, and a handbag. She didn't notice until she reached her hotel near Gare du Nord and found every card in her wallet gone. She got lucky in one respect: most of her cash was packed in her suitcase, and her passport wasn't in her bag at all.

The hotel staff let her call her bank in Australia. It happened to be a French public holiday, which slowed everything down further. Her bank wired money, and a new card caught up with her at her next stop a few days later.

The takeaway: keep your cards, cash, and passport in separate places, not all in one bag. Stay alert at turnstiles, on train platforms, and anywhere you're distracted by luggage. That's exactly when pickpockets strike.

A few more unusual moments

Cas and I also talked about a village potato ball in central France, a thermal cure in Sète that ended with her learning to dance the Jerusalem, and a historical pageant in a tiny Basque village she found by chance. None of it was planned. All of it made the trip memorable. That's often how it goes in France: the best stories aren't the ones you book in advance.

Listen to the full episode for all the details, including Cas's specific recommendations on restaurants, accommodations, and how to travel France without a car.

Want more stories and recommendations like this? Sign up for my newsletter at joinusinfrance.com/newsletter and get new episodes, guest notes, and trip-planning tips sent straight to your inbox.

Table of Contents for this Episode

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Puy du Fou, Arles Bullfighting, and Getting Pickpocketed in Paris, Episode 603