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.