Parisians become stuck in maze overnight in fishy tourist mishap
The tourists spent the night looking for the exit after claiming to have got stuck in the two-hectare labyrinth…but did they?
The maze at Monts de Guéret is a two-hectare puzzle that presented a rather fishy problem to two Parisian tourists this week…or did it? (Image for illustration only)
vitmore / Shutterstock
Two Parisians prompted concern and incredulity on social media after claiming they spent the night in a maze while on holiday in Creuse, central France, getting so lost they could not escape.
The tourists, friends Antoine and Paul, visited the two-hectare circular maze in Monts de Guéret, Creuse (Nouvelle-Aquitaine) on March 31. Yet, they promptly became lost in the hedges, they explained.
Come closing time, they were still stuck, and were forced to spend the night looking for the exit. They became caught in the dark as their phones ran out of power, had no food, and no-one heard their calls for help.
Antoine told FranceBleu: “By the time we tried to get out again, when the sun went down, we had no battery and so we went round and round in the maze. All those hours on an empty stomach, we dreamt of kebabs, pizza…anything.”
In the morning light, the duo finally managed to find the exit, and ran to their car.
Antoine said: “We felt a bit stupid, it’s not normally that difficult [to get out], children can usually manage it.”
Camille Beaume, the manager of the site, said that the issue had never happened before.
She said: "It's a first. Every day, staff count the number of customers entering and leaving the labyrinth. This time, however, there was an obvious miscalculation. We're thinking hard about other means of control so that this mishap doesn't happen again.”
Spare a thought for Ms Beaume, however, as the unfortunate tale has since been revealed as an April Fool! The story was shared with the cooperation of the maze organisers, and “Antoine and Paul” were in fact France Bleu journalists named Roman and François.
We can confirm that no Parisians were lost or hurt in the maze, and that everyone, in fact, managed to escape the labyrinth before the end of the day…
We thought the story was a bit fishy…Poisson d’Avril!
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