You don’t need to go all the way to Florida to find theme
park heaven; Europe’s most thrilling rollercoasters are just a short flight
away. PortAventura theme park in Salou, Spain, is a positive scream-fest of a
place, where you can blast off at high speed, loop the loop, get a good soaking
and plummet hundreds of feet out of the sky (safely of course), all close to
the golden shores of the Mediterranean.
Here’s our guide to the most adrenaline-fuelled rides at PortAventura theme park:
Furius Baco
Just inside the park entrance, Furius Baco will really get your visit to
PortAventura off to a flying start. The fastest in Europe when it opened in
June 2007, this floorless coaster reaches 83.9 miles per hour in just 3.5
seconds. Expect mad professors, naughty monkeys and stomach-lurching twists and
turns on the fastest 55 seconds of your life.
Stampida
If you like your theme park rides to shake you about a bit, PortAventura’s
popular wooden rollercoaster is for you. Stampida has plenty of tense climbs
and scary drops to have you screaming your head off, with the added fun of 2
parallel tracks racing against each other. Fasten your seatbelts because you’re
in for a bumpy ride.
Dragon Khan
Dragon Khan’s looping red track dominates the PortAventura skyline, and it just might dominate your day too.
Starting from 148ft high, you’ll plummet straight into the 8 loops, rolls and
corkscrews, a world record when it was built, for 1 minute and 45 seconds of
pure adrenaline.
Hurakan Condor
Hold on to your lunch as you drop from a height of 100m (or 330 feet -
whichever way you look at it, it’s pretty high). Many drop ride fans rate
Hurakan Condor one of the world’s best thanks to the different ways it can be
experienced: depending on the side of the tower you board from, you can sit in
regular seats, tilting seats or stand!