Ceekay Kaycee

Review of CITE DE L'ESPACE

For anyone interested in space or weather. Lots of...

For anyone interested in space or weather. Lots of fun and cool interactive exhibits. You can walk around the Mir space station, sit in the style of chair an astronaut sits in for 6 hours to reach the International Space Station (very cramped and uncomfortable) and try out how it feels to walk like an astronaut under zero gravity. This is amongst many , many other things to do here. Exhibits are spread around inside and outside.

It is reasonably expensive for entry ~ 20 per adult, however in my opinion this place is worth the cost. You can easily spend an entire day here and not run out of things to do or to look at. There are lots of hands-on exhibits to keep children interested and plenty for adults too.

The Imax show lasted 30 minutes and was about the French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and his time on the ISS and was very interesting. Later in the museum there are some of his clothing and pack items, in addition to his spacesuit on display from his time on the ISS. The spacesuits are made to fit each individual as are the seats they sit in to travel to the space station. You can understand why, when you realise they have to sit for six hours in the fetal position in these seats.

The planetarium was fantastic, the audience were enthralled and the 1 hour show passed very quickly indeed. Part of the presentation was interactive and the presenter was interesting and engaged the audience. Everyone sitting around seemed to have really enjoyed it and if you didn't speak French there were headsets which translated the talk to English, Spanish, German and perhaps Italian.

Exhibits with text included both English and Spanish translations in addition to French and usually an option to choose the spoken language for vocal exhibits to either French, English or Spanish.

We chose to eat at the snack bar in the Astralie building, it was fairly busy but the staff were friendly and smiling. My husband had a bagel formule, bagel with tuna salad, crisps, Coke zero and a coffee. I had tuna salad, piece of bread, a Coke zero and a coffee. The bill was around 22 which seemed reasonable and comparable to other tourist attractions. The food was fresh, nicely presented and we had no complaints about quality.

For those who are likely to want to visit several times, a year pass for an adult is 35 , so for even 2 visits in a year it is worth buying a year's pass. Family annual tickets available too.

We loved this place and had a great time, we would have spent more time there but had been there since it opened in the morning at 10, so by 6 in the evening it was time to leave. We will definitely go back.