Mousefriends

Tivoli, Hygge and Danish Design

"I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose."
Woody Allen

The number one tourist attraction in Denmark is Tivoli, one of the worlds oldest theme parks located in downtown Copenhagen. It's about as downtown as it can be, located between the town hall and the central train station. Tivoli has both nice rides and entertainment, but it’s greatest asset is the atmosphere they have managed to maintain. With lights all around, a small China town, old booths and café’s with danish pastry and interesting restaurants, Tivoli's a must see for visitors to Denmark.

With 9 kids at the table, it was impossible to get a shot of everyone sitting, smiling and looking into the camera.

We went with our hosts to the pirate ship, an old sail ship that has been turned into a pirate themed restaurant. It’s impressive. The ship is very real, floating on the water with natural movements, and the captain’s cabin, where we ate, was nicely decorated with pirate weapons and icons. The servants were correctly dressed, the menu followed the theme in the names and descriptions of the courses and I was looking forward to a truly themed experience. Unfortunately, the staff, though appropriately dressed in pirate clothing, was not in on the concept. The service was bad and we didn’t get our steaks prepared as we asked for. Not even the second time around. So why bother offering us rare, medium and well done if the chef can’t figure it out? They were so close to delivering an excellent experience, it’s sad that they fail at such simple things as those.

It amazes me how the service level in Europe in general is so much lower than in the US (ok, I’m generalizing here, I’ve got excellent service in Europe and lousy service in the US as well). It’s often so simple things, such as a smile, ask how the food is (and listen to the answer), offering even the smallest compensation when something goes wrong etc. Small, simple things like that can make such a great difference.

Theme parks are really one of Denmark's strong holds. You'll find theme parks within a few minutes from each other all around Denmark. When in Copenhagen I would recommend Tivoli and Bakken (the worlds oldest theme park) and Legoland in Jutland. Those are the best ones for international tourists while others are more aimed at the locals.

Danes are all but workaholics. Their expertise is “hygge”, which we might translate as “cozy time”. The downside of this is that they start closing everything at least 15 minutes early so that they can get out the door the minute they are supposed to close. So be prepared for that and show up in time. They don’t like to have things on stock either so they usually order a little less than they could possibly sell so that they won’t have any “leftovers” at the end of the day. That’s a bad habit, specially for a last-minute and spontant person like me ☹

But “hygge” is at the same time their best quality and what I love the most about Danes. They really know how to relax with friends and family, take things easy and enjoy the moment. It doesn’t have to be fancy, they’re more on the romantic side. A checkered picnic tablecloth, candle light, red wine or beer and very healthy sandwiches. You put all this in a basket – on the front of your bike – and ride to the park or beach and enjoy the day. Maybe this is also the reason why Danes are so creative. They give themselves the time to think and create, rethink and recreate. And they don’t just build castles of sand, they also really know how to sell their design and export it. The Danish culture has both created and been created by great designers and architects like Arne Jacobsen, Georg Jensen, Jørn Utzon (Sydney Opera). Beside Tivoli, only a few meters south of the town hall, you’ll find Danish Design Center where you can see examples of the best in Danish Design through the years.

Cheers to that
Hjörtur

Kayaking in Copenhagen

Sight-seeing in the cities around the world usually includes a double decker and a loud speaker. In Copenhagen you’ve got some interesting alternatives. Certainly, Copenhagen by bike is an interesting experience with the great biking culture you’ll find there, excellent infrastructure where bikes have their own lanes and traffic lights. But one of my favorites is kayaking. Ole, better known as Kayak-Ole started offering Copenhagen sight-seeing tours on kayaks on the canals of the city sometime last decade and they’re gaining increased popularity. You get real close to the city and it’s life lanes in an interesting, alternative way.

For those with children or “less advanced” kayaking skills, you can sail in open tourist boats around the canals with a loud speaker telling you stories. We’ve taken our guests on that tour many times as it’s a tour anyone can enjoy and quite a cheap one too.

Since we weren’t really looking for sight-seeing around the city, having lived there for six years, we decided to spend the sunday afternoon kayaking at Amager Strandpark, a new man-made beach and waterplayground. There’s a place called Kajakhotellet where you can rent kayaks to play on, which we did. You might get your butt wet (as you can see ...), but it's worth it. I took the smaller kids with me for shorter rides which they really loved and we ended the day on jumping into the water. Well, at least some of them did :).

 

Hjörtur

Copenhagen Zoo

We visited Copenhagen Zoo – “the wildest place in town”, checking out the lions and polar bears, elephants and zebras. Part of the zoo has been recently renovated with new habitats for the elephants, the African prairy animals and the hippopotamus. The change is very positive making these habitats much more attractive to both animals and human spectators.

The  youngsters are always popular, making the zebras and the sea lions a must see. Specially the sea lions which have a very cute little cub. While many of the large animals with the big dangerous teeth may be impressive to see in real life, the petting zoo is usually the winner for the children, where they can pet the goats, play rabbits and ride ponies. Anything that’s hands on for kids is the most fun.

Not as attractive was the polar bear cage. Some animals seem to have even a better live in captivity than out in the wild, but others are really sad to see. The polar bears fall into that category. Used to having a whole North Pole to cross, being able to swim tens of kilometers and having wide open spaces as far as the eye can reach, no cage can do them justice. They’re pretty much like a whale in a fish bowl. It’s no wonder some animal activists cheered when a polar bear was shot in Iceland recently in a failed attempt to save him, when saving him could have meant putting him into that small space in Copenhagen Zoo. It’s not that I don’t have faith in what they’re doing at Copenhagen Zoo, I just don’t think some animals should be in any cage at all. Set up a movie screen with some amazing footage of the animals in stead, info and even a dead example of the animal. It’ll never be the same, but that doesn’t have to mean it’ll be any worse.

If you want to experience safari animals in more open spaces, there’s a safari park in Lolland, south of Sealand called Knuthenborg Park & Safari where you can drive in and see the animals in “open” spaces. Another interesting place is the Danmarks Akvarium in Charlottenlund.

Hjörtur

Denmark

We went to Denmark for ten days, visiting old friends and playing tourists. It was Jokull Logi's first trip abroad, at the age of 6 weeks. Two of his older sisters were even younger when they went abroad for the first time, only eight and ten days old. Our youngest daughters first international flight wasn't until she was three weeks old though.

Denmark is a very family friendly country, but as the course of your Euro is, it’s not the cheapest one these days. We lived in Denmark for 6 years and wtayed at a friends house. There are not many friends that both can and are willing to invite a family of 7 into their home for 10 days. Thanks, dear friends. They even had a car with seven seats that we could borrow once in a while.

Copenhagen is very easy to get around without a car. The buses drive every 5 minutes on all major routes and they have an excellent train system. So a car is unnecessary in Copenhagen but may come in handy if you’re planning on visiting some of theme parks that are to be found on every other corner in Denmark. You see, there is not much to attract tourists in Denmark – nature wise. They have no mountains to climb, no gorges to cross and no rivers to sail. But they have a history and additional to that, they have created a number of great theme parks, some of them the oldest in the world. The most famous of them is Legoland which can now be found in Germany, UK and the US as well. We didn’t visit Legoland this time though, but we weren’t bored. Not at all. In the next few days I’ll posting some of our adventures in Denmark.

Hjortur