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!

Copenhagen

After a marathon 25 hours of travel, we made it to our AirBnb in Copenhagen. It’s a cute little apartment just east of the Rosenborg Slot, and about a 15 minute walk to Nyhaven- the historic canal and entertainment district. 

Almost straight away,  we were feeling under the weather so our sightseeing was somewhat limited.  Unfortunately, there was construction going on during the day downstairs, which wasn’t conducive to sleeping off whatever we both came down with.

We managed to wander around Nyhaven and up to the harbor where we saw a magnificent rainbow that we figured had followed us from home.

Transportation is easy here. We got a multi-day City Pass once we landed that gave us access to all any bus, train, or metro for a few days. The metro was super clean and easy to navigate. Sometimes we needed it, and sometimes we would just walk, racking up over 13000 steps in one day!

Danish people love their bikes. They appear to be the main mode of transportation here. Look out if you’re trying to cross the street though, the biking Danes stop for NO ONE!

They are also very big on recycling, with bins placed throughout the city to collect plastic, textiles, eWaste, paper, foodwaste, etc. There was even a kiosk that would give back money if you recycle a certain type of reuseable cup.

We happened upon a little place called the Happiness Museum. The picture of the red hat is an artifact representing the most unhappy day ever registered in the history of the Happiness Project, which is what the museum is based on. Unsuprisingly, that day was the day a certain someone was elected the first time. The postit notes are visitors comments about what makes them happy, or describing the happiest moment in their life.

We also went to the National Museum of Denmark and saw a really cool exhibit on the Vikings.

It was informative, but we both came away feeling like we wished there was more of an overview presented that would give context for what we were looking at. We did learn a lot about Völvas though, who were women with magical powers who were both revered and feared. Back home, our community was hit hard by a hurricane, so we found it hard to concentrate on the museum as reports of damage were just coming in. We still feel we got a lot out of it though despite being distracted. The food in Copenhagen was especially delicious.

The photo above was part of our meal the one day we went out for breakfast. We tried a danish sandwich at a place called Sprød & Co that was made with crispy pork, mustard,mayo, pickled cucumbers and homemade red cabbage. Sprød means “crispy” in Danish.  It was good, but not the kind of thing you would want to eat very often for your heart’s sake.

There was definitely a lot we wanted to see that we were unable to due to being under the weather, but we already know we’ll be back someday. Copenhagen is such a cool city!