Copenhagen with the kids

Realizing that I never finished posting about our trip to Denmark (and that it was the part of our trip specifically for me that I had left out) I revisit our weekend in Copenhagen.

We rented a very cool 2 bedroom apartment on airbnb. It was quite central, so we could easily walk all over the city. The kids were very impressed with the graffiti on the outside of the building and the skatepark across the road. (What I loved most about being across from the skatepark was the amount of light that was allowed into the apartment because there was no building across the road.)

I have always heard that Copenhagen is a very expensive city, but maybe that is from people who live somewhere other than Dublin. We didn't find it too bad. That said, because we were traveling as a family, we usually had breakfast and dinner in the rented apartment and only really needed to buy lunch on the go.

We had a great, relaxing city break and loved exploring the city on foot. We found it really easy to navigate! We visited the farmers market, playgrounds, the botanical gardens and of course the graves of Hans Christian Andersen and Kierkegaard.

On our second day, we visited the Aquarium.

On our last day, we visited the magical Tivoli Gardens. If you have kids (and even if you don't), its worth a trip to Copenhagen to see the Tivoli Gardens. Apparently, Tivoli Gardens is what inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland. I am generally not a fan of theme parks, but Tivoli Gardens is something very special (and I unfortunately don't have good photos.)

And of course, no trip to Copenhagen would be complete without visiting The Little Mermaid!

Denmark - Egeskov castle

With the first half of our holiday behind us, we set off in our rental car for Copenhagen. We decide to make a stop along the way at Egeskov castle, as its about halfway between Billund and Copenhagen.

We had perfect weather, as seems to be the norm on this trip!

Egeskov is famous for being the best preserved moat castle in Europe. Before heading inside, though, we had a wonderful time exploring the grounds and gardens.

There were even extensive hidden playgrounds and treetop bridges.

a quick trip to the loo before heading inside (check out the sign!)....

Then a quick peek at an exhibition of shoes and clothes before heading into the actual castle itself...

and then of course, a look inside the castle (complete with 500 year old mannequins and all, JK)...

a massive dollhouse with all the contents...

and a toy museum in the attic.

A lovely pitstop en route to Copenhagen, but alas its time to move on. So long Egeskov.

Next up, Copenhagen!

Denmark - Legoland and Bindesbølgård Farm Holiday

Here's my catch-22: I seem to only have time to tend to my blog when I don't actually have much to blog about. When I am busy with interesting stuff worth blogging about, I don't have the time to write about it. Such was the case on this trip- though I enjoyed the front end of the trip, the plastic-fantastic fun of Lalandia and Aquadome, I enjoyed it because the kids were happy and occupied, which left me with oodles of time to relax, write and read. (On this trip I was reading a book called Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I really enjoyed it.)

So to play a bit of catch-up: on Monday of our trip we went to Legoland.

I had contacted Legoland ahead of time about my calf injury and they had a wheelchair waiting for me! Apart from having a wheelchair, I also feel very spoiled when I travel to places like Denmark- everyone speaks English and we don't have to make much effort. Even as we arrived at Legoland, I asked the young guy at the gate "do you speak English?" (I don't like to be presumptuous) and he looked at me like that was the most idiotic question and said with a smirk "of course!'

My favorite thing about Legoland is just looking at the villages and towns crafted out of millions of Lego bricks (even when I am not wheelchair-bound, I don't really do rides.)

I think the Danish Legoland may actually be smaller than the San Diego one, but it is the original, so of course we enjoyed it. I am generally happy just people-watching in new places anyway. One thing that really fascinated me about the Danish legoland- people brought their dogs! So many dogs (and not just pocket dogs.)

After Legoland we spent one more night in our cabin at Lalandia. The next morning we had to check out by 10am but still had access to Aquadome for the day. We decided to give the kids a full morning of waterpark fun before heading on to our next destination, a one night stay at Bindesbølgård Farm.

I had found the farm just randomly via booking.com, simply searching for reasonable accommodation in the Legoland vicinity. Seeing as we only had a cabin at Lalandia for two nights, and that was a splurge, I just wanted an interim night that would not break the bank. Naturally, I was intrigued by the description, as we harbor a fantasy of country life. As well as the fact that a farm usually involves animals, which my kids like more than anything. The farm stay seemed very reasonable, so I booked it without doing a whole lot more research.

(... on the way to our farm, we took a little drive and ended up in an amazing 'deer park." The deer were everywhere and came to eat leaves from branches we extended to them! )

Then, on to the farm!

The farm ended up being one of the highlights of our trip and I would highly recommend staying there if going to Legoland or Aquadome. There was a huge play area with pedal carts that the kids rode up and down the country lane, a trampoline, a spaceship! and animals (including three very friendly kittens).

Our host took us on a horse and cart ride through the scenic countryside.

Overall I think the farm stay impressed everyone in the family as much, or more, than the other trip activities. Pity it was just for one night!  But Copenhagen awaits.