Maggie was most definite in the manner in which she declined to go on the roller coaster that flipped people over and did barrel rolls. She kept reminding me about the Icelander who had died on a similar ride in the same park just a couple of months ago. Later though, by herself - I was too macho to join her - she went on the teen size roller coaster. Emboldened by her experience she agreed to go on the old style big dipper. All Billy Butlin at Skegness. Apparently built of criss crossing wood like the rail bridges in classic cowboy films and with sit up and beg cars. It rattled and shook, it rocked and rolled. Maggie didn't seem to enjoy it much.
She did enjoy the boat ride type roller coasters though and she let me go on one of those bungee jump type rides and the one that spins around a central pivot.
In fact we had a thoroughly enjoyable time at Terra Mitica theme park. The place is based on the motifs of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. The park has an unhappy financial past. It was haemorrhaging money when I last heard. It certainly wasn't exactly bursting at the seams today and, in the afternoon, we hardly had to queue for rides. It's just outside Benidorm so it has a pretty international clientele but all day long we were generally treated in Spanish and served by Spaniards. The themes are pretty loose to be honest - the Lair of the Minotaur was a sort of ghost train and the Nile Falls or some such was the name of one of those boat rides. Maybe the big, old roller coaster was a Titan something or other. Food was expensive but acceptably so and the atmosphere was everything to everyone whoever you were. I'm sure that to the teenagers it seemed designed for them, the same for the families and at least one old codger felt perfectly at home.
It's the first time that I've actually been there when it has been open. I went to a Van Morrison concert (deadly dull) maybe eight or nine years ago but somehow I'd never eaten one of their burgers or drunk their coke since.
Nice day out.
