Top 10 health benefits of fiber

Dietary fiber provides numerous benefits to the human body. The top ten benefits include keeping the heart healthy, cancer prevention, it lowers cholesterol, prevents gallstones and kidney stones, promotes healthy skin, prevents stroke, aids in weight management, regulates bowels, increases energy, and it may affect the course of diabetes.

Check the top benefits of dietary fiber:

1) Your heart.

Studies have shown that high fiber intake, 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, may prevent heart disease.

2) Cancer Prevention.

Studies have shown that fiber increases how quickly food is passed through the digestive tract, which may protect against some types of cancer. Namely, colon cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer and uterine cancer.

3) Lowering Cholesterol.

Fiber binds with cholesterol during digestion and prevents it from being absorbed and clogging the arteries. This lowers bad cholesterol (LDL's) in the blood.

4) Gallstones and Kidney Stone Prevention.

Fiber is known to prevent large amounts of insulin from entering the bloodstream during digestion, which is a leading contributor to the creation of gallstones and kidney stones.

5) Promoting Healthy Skin.

Fiber is essential in ridding the body of toxins which directly affects the health of your skin. By ingesting roughage, such as leafy vegetables, fiber binds with cholesterol and its rough texture helps rid your intestines of toxic material that could otherwise be left behind. Toxins can affect the entire body, but is most obvious in the skin. Healthy skin is the result of good blood flow when toxins are cleared from your system.

6) Preventing Stroke.

Studies show that increasing fiber in the diet lowers the risk of stroke. According to the American Heart Association, a total of 25 grams of fiber should be consumed each day. Fiber can be found in produce (fruits and vegetables and whole grains).

7) Weight Management.

With proper nutrition, hunger can be regulated and slowed. Eating whole grains with more fruits and vegetables causes the body to feel full quickly. By introducing more fiber into the diet, hunger is regulated naturally and prevents obesity.

8) Regulates Bowels.

The carcinogens in the intestine bind to the fiber, creating bulk to the stool, which keeps waste moving properly through the digestive tract. By incorporating fiber into the daily diet, constipation may be prevented in addition to hemorrhoids. Without leaving residue as waste passes through the intestine, the flow of fiber helps to lessen the risk of colon cancer, as well as regulating bowel movements.

9) Increases Energy?

Some foods and dietary supplements tout fiber as an energy source. This is a myth. Fiber is a form of indigestable carbohydrates that derive from foods such as grains. There are no calories and fiber does not produce energy on its own.

10) Helps with Diabetes.

Fruits and vegetables help regulate blood sugar, which is the key in preventing diabetes. For people who live with the condition, fiber can alter the recommended dosage of medication (insulin).

The perfect trip: Cambodia

Marvel at the palaces, markets and bars of the capital, Phnom Penh, before heading north to Siem Reap for excursions to a floating village on Tonlé Sap Lake and the extravagant, inspirational temples of Angkor. From there, it is south to the untouched jungles of the Cardamom Mountains, finishing with a homestay on a rural family farm.

Phnom Penh: Best for culture
Phnom Penh is eerily quiet. A sole remork – the usually ubiquitous motorised rickshaw – rolls languorously past the Royal Palace to a deserted Tonlé Sap riverfront. Here, among the shuttered-up shops facing the palm-lined promenade, food stalls sell noodle soup and beef skewers to infrequent customers.
The peace doesn’t last. As the Khmer festival that emptied the city ends, Phnom Penhois who’d been drawn to rural family gatherings in their tens of thousands flood back to the capital and the beguiling chaos resumes. After a troubled history, which reached its nadir with the Khmer Rouge’s enforced eviction of the city in the ’70s, the ‘Pearl of Asia’ is thriving, with a flourishing café culture and a glut of world-class fusion restaurants.

• Related article: Biking in Cambodia, extreme to easy

Prosperity has added an extra sheen to its cultural institutions too, many of which were built during Cambodia’s French Protectorate era, beginning in 1863. Among these is the Art Deco Psar Thmei, a pastel-yellow covered market with four wings radiating from an enormous central dome.
A few hours after dawn and the Central Market, as it is also known, is already a blur of browsing and bartering. Business is brisk at textile stalls selling traditional checked krama scarves, while elsewhere chattering shoppers weave past fruit outlets piled with lychees and crimson dragon fruit, and stalls overflowing with lotus flowers and bunches of fragrant Rumdul, Cambodia’s national flower.
Just a few blocks from the market, the National Museum is close enough to the riverfront to receive some of its welcome breeze. A group of schoolchildren in matching white polo shirts and flip-flops plays in the shade of the terracotta building’s neatly tended garden while, inside, visitors reflect upon 1,000 years of Khmer sculpture.
The adjacent Royal Palace, with its glistening spires and dragon-tail details, still dominates the city’s low-rise skyline. In a corner of one of its courtyards, a team of artists is working to restore a 1901 mural of the Reamker – Cambodia’s version of the epic Hindu poem the Ramayana.
 ‘When I did classical painting at university, we studied the Ramayana,’ says lead artist Roeung Sreyna, gesturing to the mural behind her, where spirits and horse-drawn chariots float over a celestial palace in the sky.
 The project is slow and technical. Matching the colours takes time, as does cleaning stains and fixing damage from humidity. ‘We take one section at a time,’ she says, pointing at a three-foot-wide band. ‘Two months for each section, and we have to work slowly. If it were a normal painting, we could do it in a year, but this is our history, so we have to take care.’
Tonlé Sap: Best for lake life
In the village of Me Chrey, the streets are made of water and the wooden houses float. The village’s 500 families are among the thousands who have settled on the surface of the freshwater Tonlé Sap, Cambodia’s ‘Great Lake’, where, not surprisingly, life revolves around the water. As dawn breaks, Me Chrey is already abuzz. Toddlers paddle small aluminium tubs down the main street, fruit and vegetable sellers in bright floral clothing and conical hats navigate boats between houses, and householders check for breaches in ‘fish banks’ – submerged reed baskets where fish are kept until market day. Shouted greetings and lively chatter are punctuated by the occasional snort of a pig from a floating pen. Further out on the water, a family retrieves traps and nets laid out in wide, intricate arrangements.
It’s an itinerant existence. The floating houses, which are tied to one another, are moved by the villagers four times a year to follow migrating fish stocks. The lake’s wildly fluctuating dimensions also a play a part – in the rainy season, Tonlé Sap swells to more than 6,000 square miles, raising the floating houses by around eight metres. Dry season sees the potential spots to anchor reduced significantly.

Top 10 UK farm-stay holidays

Mark the turning of the seasons with a getaway down on the farm. Many offer fresh-from-the-field food, some let you (or the kids) feed the animals, and all offer a great dose of fresh air

Brackenborough Hall farm, Lincolnshire

Brackenborough Hall Farm, Lincolnshire

A moated manor house is at the heart of this biodiverse farm, but the accommodation is in three smart apartments in a converted 18th-century coach house. The lofty Granary features beamed and vaulted ceilings and inner workings of the original clock tower; and the Saddle Room and Stables makes use of old hay racks, feed troughs, mangers and herringbone stone or brick floors. The apartments sleep three to 12 people, or rent all three for a party of up to 24. Owners Paul and Flora Bennett offer complementary Lincolnshire plum bread from nearby Louth market and free guided tours of the estate – 800 acres of cattle-grazed parkland, oak woodlands and wildlife (roe deer, rabbits, barn owls and a rich variety of birds; hawthorn, sloe and blackthorn berries decorate the hedges in autumn). The manor also boasts Victorian kitchen gardens, a grass tennis court and a deserted medieval village.
• 01507 603193, brackenboroughhall.com. Self-catering from £340 a week for three or four to £655 for eight (short breaks also available)

Bre-Pen Farm, Cornwall

On a cliff, overlooking the sea at Mawgan Porth, Rod and Jill Brake's diverse north-coast farm sits on 60 acres of National Trust land. As well as farmhouse B&B, they run a tea-room (home-baked cakes and cream teas) and a farmshop (try Bre-Pen's own lamb and mint sausages, salads and seasonal vegetables and free-range eggs). At weekends, young chef Jon Harvey (ex Jamie Oliver's Fifteen Cornwall) runs the farm's bistro – £20 for three courses and bring your own wine. It's not the prettiest of farmhouses but the location – between Newquay and Padstow – is magic. Just sit in a field of sheep and gawp at the Atlantic. Take a Land Rover farm safari. You can get married here, too.
• 01637 860420, bre-penfarm.co.uk. B&B from £40 a night singles, £70 double, £99 family suite

Nettlecombe Farm, Isle of Wight

Populated with donkeys, alpacas, reindeer, goats, Buff Orpington hens, a goose called Gordon and peacock called Percy, this isn't your run-of-the-mill livestock farm – but it's set in 150 acres of peaceful South Wight countryside and it's heaven for kids. The farm's nine, family-size self-catering properties includes a stone cottage, a converted milking parlour and a farmhouse. As well as grassy play areas (furnished with a Wendy house and wooden tractor), there are three fishing lakes, access to cycle routes and some great walks (bring your own dog). Glorious views and only 10 minutes' drive from seaside Ventnor.
• 01983 730783, nettlecombefarm.co.uk. Self-catering cottages of various sizes, from £300 a week (sleeps four) or £545 (sleeps eight), low season (off-season short breaks available)

Smallicombe, Devon

Berkshires and Middle Whites – among other rare breed pigs – are the speciality of Smallicombe, a 70-acre livestock farm which has its own woodland, between Sidmouth and Lyme Regis on the Devon-Dorset border, just a few miles from the Jurassic Coast. Guests get pork sausages and the farm's own bacon for breakfast, evening meals (with home-grown vegetables), broods of piglets, plus woolly Dorset Down sheep, Ruby Devon cattle and occasional courses on pig-keeping. You can wonder around the farm and help feed the pigs or chickens. Accommodation includes adults-only grown-up suites in a wing of the farmhouse (complete with roll-top tubs and tongue and groove), a two-bedroom family room and four outhouse cottages.
• 01404 831310, smallicombe.com. Doubles from £70 per night B&B, self-catering from £195 per week for two; two-course dinner £17.95 a head, by prior arrangement

Glenkilrie, Perth

The farmhouse, like a mini baronial castle, presides over 2,500 acres of heather, grazing sheep and Limousin cows (some of Glenkilrie's beef ends up in M&S). The rooms are homely (lots of pine, primrose paint and floral prints) and the breakfast is wholesome – fresh eggs, local bacon and homemade marmalade served in a traditional family dining room. You are free to roam the farm, but according to farmer Morag Houstoun, most people come for the Highland scenery, the wildlife (you can spot deer and red squirrels from your bedroom window) and local attractions, including Glenshee Ski Cente, the Cairngorms, and the castles of Perthshire and Royal Deeside. Blairgowrie, the nearest town, is 13 miles away.
• 01250 882241,glenkilrie.co.uk. B&B from £25pp

Nannerth Farm, Powys

This is farm diversification with knobs on. In the beautiful Wye Valley, the farm offers an apartment, two cottages, a gypsy caravan, wild camping (just you and the elements – no loo, no shower, no Wi-Fi), VW camper-van hire, and a "dog stay cabin" (for canine guests). The Gallagher family still find the time to manage 200 acres of hay meadows and Welsh mountain ewes. A conservation farm, it's all organic, partly powered by green energy and rich in wildlife. Regular hands-on breaks offer weekends of animal feeding and farmhouse breakfasts. From a treehouse hide, you can also try a bit of nocturnal badger-watching.
• 01597 811121, nannerth.co.uk/nf. Self-catering from £207 per week for two, £304 for four or £389 for six; three-night autumn breaks available

Moor Court Farm, Ledbury, Herefordshire

This 15th-century house is timber-framed with rustic oak beams; the Godsall family have tended its 500 acres since the 1920s, and they still grow cereals and rear livestock. Fields of hops – a Herefordshire staple – are almost a thing of the past in this hilly Welsh border county, but there are two traditional hop kilns in the yard. Stay in a poshed-up farmhouse bedroom (one has a four-poster), dine on Moor Court beef and lamb or local game and try a spot of autumn apple-picking (the farm's own orchards grow fruit for Weston's local organic ciders).
• 01531 670408, moorcourtfarm.co.uk. B&B from £35pp sharing or £40 single; evening meal from £19 a head

Church Farm, Suffolk

There are chickens and a pony, but the mainstays of this East Anglian farm are fruit and forestry: in summer until October, raspberries and strawberries; in autumn, tons of apples and pears; in winter, Christmas trees. Paul and Ruth Williamson's flinty farmhouse offers two lovely rooms (a double and a twin) – both lushed up with goose down duvets, Egyptian cotton, antique beds and handmade soaps. For breakfast, Ruth serves fresh eggs cooked on the Aga and seasonal home-grown fruit and for afternoon tea she offers home-made cakes and scones. For dinner, there's a decent village pub – The Manger in Bradfield Combust, just down the road.
• 01284 386333, churchfarm-bandb.co.uk. Doubles from £70 B&B

Yew Tree Farm, Cumbria

Yew Tree Farm, near Coniston, Cumbria. Photograph: Alamy Set against a backdrop of craggy Lakeland fells, this 17th-century farmhouse near Coniston was owned by Beatrix Potter before she left it to the National Trust. In the 1930s, Miss Potter (the farm played a starring role in the movie) helped her tenants weather an economic downturn by suggesting they open a tearoom. She even bought the furniture. But though the furniture is still there the tearoom was recently closed. Jon Watson, today's tenant farmer, now supports his heritage meat business by letting his Grade II-listed farmhouse – all dark oak panelling, real fires, cruck-frame beams and patchwork quilts combined with rain showers and a hot tub. On the farm's 700 acres, discover sloping meadows of Swaledale and Herdwick sheep, big fluffy cows and spectacular views. In October, you can see Jon take his "tups", or mountain rams, to market in nearby Broughton-in-Furness.
• 015394 32321, yewtree-farm.com. Self-catering from £575 a week (sleeps six)

Lovesome Hill Farm, North Yorkshire

Mary and John Pearson's farm overlooks the Hambleton Hills from 165 acres of sheep-dotted fields, orchards and gardens between North Yorkshire's Moors and Dales national parks. There is one farmhouse guest room, another in a cosy cottage and four more in a converted granary – all very traditional (oak, beams, pine, upholstery). Walkers or cyclists can doss in a dorm-style bunk barn (Wainwright's coast-to-coast path skirts the southern edge of the farm). Aga-cooked breakfasts and evening meals include Lovesome's own eggs, bacon, beef and lamb, homemade breads, cakes, apple juice and jams. And you are invited to help collect eggs or join a spring lambing break.
• 01609 772311, lovesomehillfarm.co.uk Doubles from £72 B&B, bunk-barn beds from £11pp; dinner from £12.50-£25 a head

Heli-ski Kyrgyzstan's most remote regions

Lift lines and crowded slopes become a distant memory when you land atop the untamed, snowcapped, 4,500m-high Terskey Ala-Too range in northeastern Kyrgyzstan.

Specialising in mountain expeditions throughout Central Asia, K2 Adventures uses a private helicopter to transport daring skiers and snowboarders to the untouched terrain, limiting trips to a few small groups each year.
The area does not have typical skiing facilities, so the backcountry runs tend to stay unpacked and powdery. On a good weather day (temperatures vary from about -10C to -3C), skiers can expect to make about six trips down the mountain, descending about 800 to 1,200m depending on the route.

• Related article: Horse trekking through Kyrgyzstan

“Terskey is paradise for experts, with its high altitudes and wild slopes,” said Igor Fedyaev, managing director of K2 Adventures. “It’s a real no man’s land -- a huge area with very different shapes, eternal snow-covered summits and huge glaciers.”
The normal group size is about 13 skiers or snowboarders, with a maximum of 15 allowed on any trip. K2 Adventures uses Russian Mi-8MTV1 helicopters for the route, known for their ability to take off at altitudes above 5,000m, and pilots must have at least 15 years of flying experience. On the mountain itself, skiers are always accompanied by two guides, with at least one expert in avalanche safety. 
In case of bad weather, guides transport the group to Uzbekistan, either to the traditional ski resorts of Chimgan or Beldersay, to Tashkent, one of the biggest cities in Central Asia, or to Samarkand, a city with a mix of ancient mosques and monuments.
For intermediate-level skiers who still want the heli-ski experience, Fedyaev recommended Kyrgyzstan's Ala-Archa and Suusamur ranges, as the descents are more regularly traversed and they are only 150km south of the capital, Bishkek, should any accidents occur, compared to the 350km between Bishkek and the Tersky Ala-Too range to the east.
Practicalities
Email info@adventuretravel.ru to book. Trips run from January to April, and cost $3,990 per person to ski the intermediate range and $4,790 per to ski the more advanced range. Both trips are seven days long, which includes about eight hours of active helicopter time during the full trip as well as accommodation in Bishkek. Additional helicopter time can be added for $260 per person per hour.
On top of the fee, skiers and boarders must carry at least $20,000 worth of international health or accident insurance coverage, pay the $110 Kyrgyz visa fee if needed and pay for skiing and avalanche-preparedness equipment if they do not have their own.

Antigua rises from the ashes

It was 12 months ago that Volcán del Fuego lit up the sky above Antigua, sending grey ash to blanket the tender leaves of coffee trees growing more than 80km away. As scorching lava rolled 600m down the volcano’s slope, 33,000 people from 17 villages in the Guatemalan highlands were quickly evacuated.

• Related slideshow: Step back in time in Guatemala

Belying the devastation they bring, volcanoes are bewitchingly beautiful. I was among a small group of travellers who climbed Pacaya – the other active mountain visible from Antigua – six months after it erupted in 2010, prompting President Álvaro Colom to declare a national state of emergency. Though it was calm the morning we ascended, the mountain radiated heat; a small branch dropped into a hole in the crust lit on fire before it landed. Erring on the side of caution, we stopped to admire the panorama several hundred metres short of the smouldering peak, which again resumed its sputtering in January 2013. On the charred hillside below, mangled tree branches jutted out to meet the clear blue sky. To the northwest lay Fuego’s slumbering sister, Volcán del Agua, and just beyond it, in the verdant Panchoy Valley, was Antigua, a colonial town that writer Aldous Huxley described as "one of the most romantic cities in the world".
Entering Antigua for the first time is like stepping back in time. Most power lines are buried underground, and there are no traffic signs or signals. Stucco houses with terracotta roofs dating from the 18th Century wear lion’s head knockers on their doors; each building painted its own sherbet shade of pink, yellow, orange or blue. Bougainvilleas creep over walls and succulents spill out of iron-grilled windows. Three-wheeled tuk tuks zoom down the uneven streets past the Parque Central, where brightly attired indigenous locals peddle colourful textiles, wooden wares and traditional sweets; shoe shiners loiter; and Spanish professors chat over lunch. The city’s original 16th-century design – nine streets and nine avenues organized around an elegant Spanish square – remains unchanged. Wherever you stand, you need only look up to admire one of the majestic volcanoes that surround the town, sometimes feeling precariously close.
Despite the town’s present-day beauty, Antigua has persisted through its fair share of catastrophes, from the colonial-era decimation of the indigenous population  to a slew of disastrous earthquakes, the most recent of which killed 23,000 Guatemalans in 1976. The earliest-recorded tremor hit Antigua only two decades after its founding in 1543; several more in 1773 levelled it entirely, forcing the capital to move from Antigua to its current location in Guatemala City. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Antigua was born again in the mid-19th Century when hopeful elites pursuing coffee fortunes rebuilt the city. Since then, it has prospered – even amid a 36-year civil war that killed more than 200,000 indigenous Mayas in the late 20th Century.
Today, Antigua is the prized jewel of a country grappling with crime and corruption. As the anniversary of Del Fuego’s eruption and Pacaya’s recent rumblings remind, the nation’s larger problems are never far from this mountainous escape. Nonetheless, Antigua holds great reward for the adventurous traveller who craves historical intrigue, natural beauty and mouth-watering cuisine. Many travellers come for a day between visits to the Maya pyramids or Lake Atitlán, and are often surprised by the large number of things to do. To truly discover the best the city has to offer, start with the ghostly colonial ruins that won its designation as a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1979.
The most recognisable of these is the saffron-yellow Arco de Santa Catalina (5a Avenida Norte), the only remnant of an early 17th-century convent. The private passage within the arch was built so nuns could cross the street without being seen, and it is now a potent symbol of the city’s resilience. Most haunting are the ruins of the Iglesia y Convento de las Capuchinas (2a Calle Oriente and 2a Avenida Norte) in the city’s northeast quadrant. Built in 1726, the church housed the Capuchins, a severe order of nuns from Madrid who emphasised total abnegation. Ascent the tower to explore 18 nuns’ cells converging on a circular courtyard, and then descend into the dungeon where – rumour has it – wayward sisters were tortured.

Macau beyond the roulette wheel

Peer across the smoky gambling tables and the lines of slot machines in Macau’s crowded casino halls, and there is little doubt as to what the greatest attraction is for the majority of the 28 million people who visit this Special Administrative Region of China each year. Yet beyond the neon façade, Macau has much more to offer.

The Portuguese controlled Macau for almost 450 years and in that time built churches, fortresses and grand homes in the distinctive architectural style of their motherland. When Macau was returned to China in 1999, many locals expected the new rulers to gradually erase the legacy of the European colonial days. But Chinese authorities quickly realised that Macau’s unique heritage holds enormous potential to promote the region as a tourist destination. In the last decade, the Chinese have renovated many buildings in their original Portuguese style, installed typical early 20th-century Portuguese streetlights and made every effort to celebrate Macau’s colourful history.  

• Related article: Mini guide to Macau, China

A stroll through the historic district’s narrow cobblestone streets makes it easy to see the fusion of Chinese and Portuguese that created such a distinct Macanese culture. Shops selling fresh egg tarts that could have come straight out of a Lisbon bakery are found alongside stalls with bak kwa, wafer-thin slices of marinated dried meat; colonial European buildings are decorated with bright red Chinese lanterns; even within the Catholic churches there are paintings of the Madonna and child, both with unmistakably Asian features and dressed in flowing Chinese silk robes.
Street signs meanwhile display names in Cantonese and Portuguese, with the two versions not always sharing the same meaning; the Portuguese wanted to commemorate historical figures by naming streets and alleys in their honour, but the Chinese did not always hold them in the same high esteem.
The most prominent landmark in Macau, beyond the garish glitz of the modern casinos, is the ruin of St Paul’s Church, a 17th-century Jesuit church that was destroyed by fire in 1835. All that remains is the elaborately carved façade, which dominates the skyline of old Macau, with the long set of steps leading up to the church crowded by Chinese visitors posing for photographs using it as a backdrop.
Above the site of St Paul’s Church and overlooking the South China Sea is a stone fortress, also built by the Jesuits in the 17th Century to defend Macau from attacks. The building now houses the Museum of Macau, a comprehensive collection of artefacts from before and after the arrival of the Portuguese. There are 16th-century maps, reconstructed streets made up of typical Chinese and Portuguese houses and cultural items such as puppets that shine a light on old Macanese life.
The most striking exhibit is a recreation of a cricket fight, demonstrating how the Chinese would bet on the outcome of a battle to the death between the two insects. The crickets were even tickled with a straw stick before a fight to increase their aggression. A champion cricket was feted as a hero and would be buried in a special casket after it had fought its final battle. Perhaps this display provides the strongest hints as to the roots of Macau’s gambling culture.
For a long time the Portuguese allowed Macau to decay slowly, reluctant to invest more than necessary in this distant outpost. Yet in the run-up to the handover of Macau to the Chinese in 1999, the Portuguese government took a renewed interest, keen to ensure a lasting legacy once their time in Macau was over. Cobbled streets, for so long put together with spare rubble from the city’s crumbling buildings, were renovated with the same high quality stone used to pave the streets of central Lisbon. Old buildings were restored to their former glory. Public statues were erected to commemorate Portugal’s role in Macau’s history; the most prominent example being the Friendship Statue at the foot of St Paul’s Church, featuring a Chinese girl handing a lotus flower (a symbol of purity) to a young Portuguese man.

A magical, fire-breathing timekeeper in France

La Maison de la Magie, a museum in Blois dedicated to the history of magic and illusionists. (CC Moutoons)

Forget cuckoos: when the clock of a seemingly normal building in France hits 12, six golden dragon heads emerge from the windows, spewing plumes of smoke and roaring at the crowds below.

For about five minutes, the imposing heads – each measuring 7m long – cock their heads in all directions and move to eerie music and clanging bells, before slowly retreating back inside.
Home of the La Maison de la Magie, a museum in Blois dedicated to the history of magic and illusionists, the building plays tribute to clockmaker and magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin, one of the most influential magicians of his time. The dragon clock was added in 1998 as part of the museum’s inauguration.
Born in Blois, France, in 1805, Robert-Houdin gave rise to many modern magic tropes, such as performing in massive curtained theatres (as opposed to in sideshows) and dressing in formal tailcoats. American magician Ehrich Weiss was so fascinated by the French magician that he created the now-famous stage name Harry Houdini as tribute.
The Maison de la Magie is opens from late March until early November. Admission costs eight euros per person, but the dragon show can be seen for free when standing across from the Chateau de Blois once the residence of French kings.