Parc d'Asterix

Well I couldn't help myself, being a bit of a Theme Park afficionado from dragging myself and my very enthusiastic other half out to a little known theme park by international standards on the outskirts of Paris called 'Parc d'Asterix'. Parc d'Asterix is an Asterix lover's idea of nirvana. (which my better half is, as she is madly in the process of collecting all of the books in French) It is well themed in the best traditions of the characters and adventures from the Asterix tales.

It is split into 5 themed areas representing various popular Asterix tales. There is, 'La Gaule' (old France), 'L'Empire Roman', (I don't think I need to translate that), La Grece (ancient Greece), Les Vikings, and 'A traverse le Temps' (a walk through time). As expected all of the buildings and rides in each area are themed accordingly. Standing above all of this and dominating the whole park, is a giant bronze statue of Asterix sitting atop a mountain, (which also forms part of one of the rides)

We went there on a slightly overcast day, and in fact it had rained quite heavily the night before. Our fingers were crossed that the weather would hold out on the day. This was also the final week of school holidays here in France, so we were hoping that the summer crowds would have died down a little by then. We arrived excited right on opening time and sensibly we had pre purchased our tickets, allowing us to march right on through the gates and into the park. After grabbing a map and quickly orienting ourselves I found where the giant looping rollercoaster was and insisted that we go there first.

The rollercoaster in question was called 'Goudurix' and it looked pretty awesome. As we were walking up I managed to count 5 loops so that was as good an omen as any for me. There was bugger all queue here, so we got on within 10 mins which was very pleasing. I had no doubt that we wouldn't be so lucky in the waiting stakes as the day wore on. The ride certainly was as good as it looked. We were thrown down and around, tossed and belted sideways and flung upside-down more than enough times to leave me salivating for another ride, after the 90 or so seconds of pain and excitement had come to its conclusion.

We raced out of the exit along the path, and back into the entrance for a second spin around on the Goudurix. Second time around and it was equally as rough and exciting as the first, with enough

g-forces to make the average punter almost pass out. During the journey I could feel my eyes ever so slightly hazing over as we negotiated one of the loops. Rach even suggested that she passed out for a very brief moment due to her slightly inferior blood pressure. Don't let this turn you off going on it, as this roller

coaster was freakin awesome. I highly reccommend going on it. Unless of course you are scared of heights or

have had recent surgey or illness, high or low blood pressure, broken bones, heart, back or neck problems or if you are an expectant mother. Everyone else, should be completely fine.

So two rides into the day and we hadn't even been there for half an hour. I was pretty pleased at our going but realised that our run of good luck in the queues wouldn't be able to continue on forever. Sure enough when we arrived at the next ride I was right.

We wandered on around a very nice looking lake into the 'La Grece' themed area. All of a sudden the surroundings had changed and looked as though they had come straight off a packet of feta cheese. There were all sorts of big marble columns, and I think I spotted an olive branch or two. Also appearing up ahead of us was the outline of a very large wooden roller coaster called, "Le Tonnere du Zeus" (the thunder of Zeus). There are simply not enough superlatives in the English (or French) language to describe just how good this rollercoaster was. It was awesome. It was big and fast and mighty rough, but that's all part of the fun. Sadly the queue was about an hour, but I was happy to wait as it looked and sounded so very good.

In order to prevent people screaming too loudly on the rides, (as the French are a little reserved and there would be nothing worse than a whole group of tourists on a roller coaster screaming their lungs out), the French have devised a cunning ploy to inhibit the ability of a person's lungs from functioning appropriately during a day at a theme park. This cunning plan invloves the people standing both in front and behind you in the queue, (whilst you quietly wait for the ride), lighting up a cigarette and subjecting you to a barrage fragrant second hand cigarette smoke that gently wafts over and coats the linings of your throat and lungs. To those standing in a queue at a theme park, this is a mere petty annoyance, (Espeically to those of us who remember the bad ol days of pubs and clubs allowing smoking), However, once it comes time to jump on the ride, and use the aforementioned internal chest organs for the purpose for which they were designed, (ie: a quick, loud exhalation in sheer terror) one quickly realises that they have been disabled by the barrage of cigarette smoke that you have been subjected to in the queue and thus a muted response is all you can muster. Success again, to the cunning French smokers!

Despite all this we still both managed a few screams on the Tonnere de Zeus, and it was awesome, one of the best roller coasters I have been on for a long time.

There were quite a few other rides in the Park and a couple of shows as well. We saw one show, and I was absolutely frightened that I was going to be picked out of the audience for a spot of audience participation. A thought that scared the wits out of me, as I was not so keen to make a fool of myself, bumbling my way through my fractured French in front of an audience of 1000 people. Mercifully this did not occur, (as much to my suprise) every person they "picked" out of the crowd to take take part in the show, were actually actors from the theme park who had been planted there. Phew! Dodged a bullet there.

All in all though I think our favourite ride was a Bobsled style ride called

'Trace du Hourra'. This ride does not have a traditional track and wheels like a normal roller coaster.

It is a roller coaster in the sense that it is a few carriages and wheels stuck together. However, like a bobsled at the Winter Olympics, it 'runs' up the side of all of the curves which are long and sweeping as it gracefully makes it way to the bottom of the run. Its a little hard to describe, so here are some pics and hopefully one of them shows it accurately.

Here also is a link to a video of it on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsxBnHZJBfc

All in all a great day out and I am already looking forward to another visit. Here are some random pics of some of the other rides in the park.

Some cheese I have recently eaten

It has only recently occured to me that I have been here for over 3 months now, and I have completely neglected to write anything about the most popular topic of conversation here in France, food.

Alright, we all know there are a whole stack of foods that really capture a Frenchman (or woman's) heart, but probably none more so than cheese. Stepping into the cheese aisle of even a small local supermarket, can be an overwhelming experience for the novice cheese hand (such as myself) and a visit to an even larger supermarket or speciality fromagier can be a downright nightmare.

Putting these fears aside, I trotted off to our local large supermarket, (Champion) to take in the wide variety of cheeses and bring a few home for a bit of a sample.

The first cheese I came home with was 'Pont l'Eveque', a very soft cheese originating from Normandy (north west France). Apparently it was originally manufactured 'in the area surrounding the commune of 'Pont 'l'Eveque' and is supposedly the oldest Norman cheese still in production, as it has been made since the 1100's.

I don't pretend to be any sort of cheese expert, so this is what wikipedia says about it. "Pont-l'Évêque is an uncooked, unpressed cows's milk cheese , square in shape usually at around 10cm square and around 3cm high, weighing 400g.

The central pâte is soft, has a creamy pale yellow colour with a smooth, fine texture and a pungent aroma. This is surrounded by a washed rind that is white with a gentle orange-brown coloration. The whole is soft when pressed but lacks elasticity"

This description was pretty much accurate when I ate it, and I certainly wouldn't complain about the taste. I guess in my mind it was pretty similar to eating a camembert but probably had a slightly stronger taste.

Secondly I came home with a Brillat-Savarin, another cheese from Normandy, and named after famed 17th century French gastromomer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. I had actually heard

of this guy prior to coming to France. For those of you who are fans of the TV show Iron Chef, each and every episode starts with a quote from Brillat-Savarin, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are". Well Mr Savarin, I will tell you what I am, I am bloody excited to eat this cheese. It is very very soft, almost cream cheese like, and so very white. Almost as white as a pavlova. It has a very strong odor and tastes slightly sour. It is quite similar to Brie, (infact this cheese is a variety of triple cream brie) however it is a lot creamier and far whiter in colour than the slighly more yellow colour that you would get in a regular brie. I am certainly not going to complain about the taste, and hopefully my arteries don't complain too much about all of the fat either.

Thirdly I came home with Mimolette, which is bright orange in colour, and depending on the ageing can range in texture, from slightly soft (which this one was, as it was a 'Mimolette Jeune') to amost as hard as a rock (as was one I purchased a few weeks ago, which was 'Mimolette extra vieille' meaning well aged)

Mimolette is normally produced around Lille in France. The history of the cheese is that Louis XIV wanted France to produce a cheese that was similar to Edam. It was made in a similar way to Edam, but in order to distinguish it from Edam, Louis ordered that the cheese be coloured orange. The royal cheese makers were not going to argue with the big cheese Louis, (lol) so the resultant cheese, was one with a taste that closely resembles Edam, however a colour all of its own.

The orange colour of the cheese is made from the fruit (well actually the crushed up dried seeds) of an Achiote tree. (Apparently not native to Europe) Also cheese mites are added to the crust as part of the cheese making process in order to add flavour to the Mimolette.

This one I enjoyed the most, I have absolutely no idea whether it tastes like Edam or not as I am not enough of a connoisseur of cheese to know what Edam tastes like and have never eaten it regularly enough to know. In the photo it looks like a nice slice of fruit, but it certainly doesn't taste anything like fruit.

So there you have it, I had managed to sample three of the four hundred official cheeses in France, as denoted by the French Ministry of Agriculture. Only 397 more to go.

More Paris transport. Trains

(Pic courtesy of Google Images)

By far the easiest way to get around Paris is the the Metro rail system. According to Wikipedia, Paris is exactly 86.928km2. If you look at it on Google Earth, Paris is roughly circular with an approximite radius of 5km (not a particularly large area when you consider that over 2 Million people live inside of it).

To put some comparison for you, as to just how small the actual city of Paris. I have transposed a circle of 5km radius against Sydney, (click on the pic to make it bigger)

For those of you out west, here is the size of Paris city, transposed on Penrith (I have used the council chambers as the centre of the circle.) As you can see it barely takes in all of

Glenmore Park, and certainly does not take in St Marys, and does not even get all of Cranebrook & Mt Pleasant in either.

Anyway I have digressed a little. Getting back to the Paris metro, it is a fantastic way to get around the city and there are stations everywhere. I have been told that no matter where you are in the city you are never more than 500m from a metro station. (Some Gallic hyperbole no doubt!) According to wikipedia "It has 16 lines, mostly underground, and a total length of 214 km (133 mi). There are 300 stations. Since some are served by several lines, there are 384 stops in total "

Apparently it carries 4.5 Million passengers every day, and Chatelet Les-Halles station (right in the centre of the city) is the worlds largest underground station. I would believe that, as the "correspondence" (as it is called in French, which means the trip to change from one train to the other) can take 10 mins at Chatelet and sometimes a walk of more than 1km. (There are even travelators just like at the airport to save you all of the walking)

Some of the trains on the metro lines actually run on tyres, as opposed to rails like

traditional trains. I have no idea why, but it looks kind of funny, when the train pulls up seeing normal car style pneumatic tyres on a train. They are not all like this, some of the other lines run regular type trains, on rails with bogies and steel wheels. (Here is a pic on the right of a train with pneumatic tyres) and a more traditional one below.

(Pic courtesy of Google Images)

As well as the metro, there is also the RER, which is the suburban mass transit train system that

services the whole of the Ile de France region.

This system helps to bring in and send home everyday the other 8 million people that live in the Greater Paris region. (On top of the 2 million people that live in Paris city itself) These are proper heavy type trains and go to all corners of Ile de France and run on through the city. (RER Pics courtesy of Google Images)

Finally I give you the TGV!

Chez Nous - Butte Aux Cailles

Chez nous (meaning 'Our house') is currently in an area of Paris called the 'Butte Aux Cailles' on a tucked away hill in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. It is apparently a bit of an historical area, where a whole bunch of communists lived once upon a time, and did all sorts of communist type things. The area still shows signs of its more egalitarian roots.

We actually live on the street Rue De La Butte Aux Cailles in the heart of the area, which is bristling with small cafes, pubs, bars and restaurants.


Here is the bar that is next door to our house called 'La Folie en Tete', a very good staggering distance if need be. Along the road a little more is another favourite bar of ours, 'Bar Sputnik'




Further up the street is our local pub, called ' La Village de la Butte' which you can see in this pic with the red awning. It has been here that we have witnessed many a sporting event on the big screen.
Right next door to the local is our local boulangerie, where we go for all of our fresh baked treats, including the most wonderful bread you have ever seen (or indeed tasted)


Up the street further, is what I think would have to be our favourite local resturant called 'Le Temps des Cerises' (Time of the Cherries). It is quite interesting as its actually a resturant that is run as a workers co-operative, (how very communist. Take that Stalin!) . As such the food is awesomely French, and relatively cheap. It was here that I had my first taste of a French speciality called 'Andouillette' which is basically just a tripe sausage. An interesting taste to say the least.



A road that runs off Butte Aux Cailles is 'Rue des Cinq Diamants' (Five Diamonds Street) which also contains quite a few restaurants that we like to frequent, including another of our favourites , 'Chez Gladines'

Chez Gladines is a Basque country restaurant, featuring all sorts of yummy cuisine from the far south west of France and northern Spain. They have pretty big portions of everything, in fact I heard someone describe the portions as "North American in size" which I felt was quite apt when I saw the size of the salad that arrived at my table which sadly I struggled to finish. Now I am going to sound like some sort of restutant reviewer when I say this. But if anyone who bothers to read this actually ever goes there, for god's sake get there early because the place is ALWAYS choc-o-bloc.

A little further away from our house is Place D'Italie, which is a massive roundabout and is the general 'CBD' of the 13th Arrondissement. There is a big shopping centre here (although not as good as Penrith Plaza) called 'Italie 2' and its here that we do most of our shopping. (see the right) There is also a major Metro station here also that intersects 3 metro lines.





(You can see here on the left the art nouveau (thanks very much) style entrance to the Metro station, this style is the same all over Paris)