When I was young I was hooked on the comic album series Tintin as soon as I saw them. I collected the entire series over the years and when Sydney became old enough I shared them with her and she devoured them as well. After completing the series she asked for more like it and I was able to turn up several others including Blake and Mortimer and Lucky Luke and French creation and favorite Asterix. Covering the adventures of Asterix, his friend Obelix and their Gaul village resisting the Roman occupation of what is now France, over 30 of the comic album adventures have been published and is one of the few of these type of series that continued to publish new books even after the passing of the original authors. All this popularity has lead to multiple films and a theme park north-east of Paris, Parc Astrix.
The park itself has been around for over 20 years and Kim and I have been planed to come on several trips but the have away dropped the visit during the actual trip, the big obstacle being it is a pain in the butt to get to. Unlike its big rival Disneyland Paris you cannot take a train to its front gate from central Paris if you do not have a car. Rather you have to take the train to Charles De Gaulle Airport then transfer to a bus that would take you to the park about 30 minutes further out of the city. The execution of this always turned us off but on this trip we had a car and an interested traveler so how could we pass this time?
Having more limited hours than theme parks in the United States (closes at 1900 in the high summer!) we had to make sure we were timely. Luckily visiting the day after a national holiday seemed to reduce the number of visitors so we were able to move through the park with ease. More like Great America & Six Flags than Disney the park had quite a few roller coasters, our favorites being Oziris, an Egyptian themed inversion coaster and La Trace du Hourra, a bobsled roller coaster which allows the cars to freewheel on parts of the track. I had only been on one of these style of coasters before at Coney Island and was happy to have a chance to ride one again after many (many) years.
There were only a couple of dark or mad house attractons and one turned out to be one of our favorites, Le Défi de César, where Julius Caesar is recruiting spies to infiltrate the Gaul village that has defied Rome. An interesting effort, it was a walk thru ride with an different kind of flow which made me think about another ride originally conceived as a walk through, Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Would it have been as successful if it stayed a walk through before changing to the boat ride concept? On the other hand Le Défi de César has an interesting last section that really plays tricks with room movement, all agreed it was our favorite. A day for Sydney at last.
On the other hand the early close meant we could have some pool time. Ahhhhh….
