Copenhagen’s World Famous Tivoli Gardens

What trip to Copenhagen would be complete without a trip to the famous Tivoli Gardens?  

Tivoli opened in 1844 and is the 2nd oldest amusement park in the world. It was also the inspiration for Disneyland, something we feel like we should have known, but somehow didn’t. 

After wandering around for a bit, it became totally obvious that it wasn’t just inspiration, but somethings seemed stright up ripped off from this place, but I digress. 

The grounds of Tivoli are clean and beautiful. 

This was actually a hotel and restaurant.

Vibrantly colorful flowers everywhere. Some were so beautiful, we almost thought they might be fake, but nope, they were the real thing. 

The park and a wristband for unlimited rides cost the equivalent of about $75 each. You can buy just an entrance ticket and pay for each individual ride, but we heard somewhere that the wristband pays for itself as long as you ride 4 rides, so we went for it. Not sure if that is even true, but we’re pretty sure we got our money’s worth. 

Our first stop was at the park’s oldest roller coaster. It is made of wood and has a seat in the car in the middle for a “driver.” It was clear that this ride was the inspiration for Disneyland’s “Big Thunder Railroad,” and possibly also the “Matterhorn.” 

 Next, we went into the park’s newest section that had a Japanese theme and went on the Dæmonen rollercoaster.

 It was fast and fun and had like 3 loops. We appeared to be the only people in line over the age of 17.   The girl sitting next to us didn’t seem to be having too much fun, and we wondered why her hair wasn’t moving, as it felt like we were going 60 mph when the photo was being taken. 

 We went on a bunch of smaller rides, and the similarities to Disney were unmistakable. I guess uncle Walt wasn’t as original as we thought! 

 There was even a lagoon with a pirate ship, and a haunted house. 

Tivoli’s haunted house was much scarier though and was filled with live actors around every corner. We didn’t get any pictures of it though because that was against the rules.

We ate some fantastic ice cream- some of the best we’ve ever had honestly. Not quite sure what made it so delicious, but Margarite’s was dipped in strawberry chocolate and was made up to look like a unicorn.  

Just like Disneyland, you could see candy being made in the sweets shop. We saw a guy making what we thought was chewy licorice, but then he gave us a piece and it was actually hard candy. Not our cup of tea, but it was fun to watch him make it!

We also stocked up on some lakrid (licorice) at the Lakrids by Bulow” shop in the park. It’s basically chocolate covered flavored licorice and it is AWESOME! 

We got some sour cherry and passion fruit flavors. It will be shocking if there are any left by the time we get home. 

Why does this clown look so high?

 Tivoli was the last thing we did before heading off to Hamburg Germany. What a great way to end our visit to this great city!