Copenhagen, Day 2
Welcome to another day in Køpenhavn. We spent the entire day in the Tivoli amusement park.
How to describe Tivoli? It's smaller than Disneyland. I also noticed that Mazda had sponsored one of the rides, but other than that, there was no branding. There are music stages, theatres, lots of restaurants and food stands, a kids' play area, and a good assortment of rides and amusements. There's also a garden, and I was quite amused to see that many of the planters contained vegetables. As we were walking past, we could have picked fresh tomatoes, eggplants, rhubarb or squash.
We arrived as the park opened at 11 am. It was quite empty, but unfortunately none of the rides opened for another hour, some not opening until 2 pm. It gave us time to survey the grounds. Then we started going on ride after ride. Sarah was very happy; ecstatic nearly. We let her lead us on our walks. The lines remained quite short because it's a weekday and Danish children started school this week; we were able to get onto any ride in a minute or two.
I ended up going on the chair ride below by myself. I think it was the scariest ride in the park, especially so for anyone who is mechanically minded. As you are flung about high above the city, you try not to think about how the failure of any link in the chain could send you flying out of the park.
Sarah and I also took in the shooting gallery.
We had lunch in a biergarten. I was talked into a litre of Paulaner Salvator. It cost just a little more than a half litre. And I was sharing it with Margo. (Honest!)
I had bratwurst; Margo had schnitzel and Sarah had spare ribs. My sausage came with a great-tasting mustard and a sweet tomato ketchup-like sauce, but thicker with vegetable chunks. And it was accompanied by these very nicely spiced potato slices. Fantastic! It was like a trap laid just for me. I felt like if I kept eating and drinking, I would turn into a pig like the parents in Spirited Away. But of course, I cleaned my plate.
We continued on our rides with good cases of the giggles. But first, some desserts.
On the boat ride, I was trying to remember some sea chanties, so I'm actually doing a yo-ho-ho in this picture, not just pumping my arm.
Around 4 pm we decided to take a break and crossed the street to the train station, walked through the station, and crossed the street to our hotel, where we had a few hours of cartoons and naps.
We returned to the park in the early evening. As the sun set, we rode a Ferris wheel, but you won't see it because our staff photographer was taking a break. We also went to the kids' play area, having first purchased some Carlsberg Special brown ale from the pub below it. We sipped our ale whilst watching Sarah's Muppet-like head bobbing on the bouncy platform, thinking, we couldn't do this at Disneyland. You know, beer and happiness are often found together, and I believe there may be a correlation.
We set off to get some dinner at a "gourmet" burger restaurant, to have our first disappointing dining experience in Denmark. The burger (Margo and I split it) was overcooked and quite bland, the moniker "gourmet" earned solely through the creative choice of build-your-own condiments.
As darkness fell, the park filled considerably. Queues for rides were much longer, so we only had a few more rides (which we'd been on previously) before finding some ice cream and then walking home.
How to describe Tivoli? It's smaller than Disneyland. I also noticed that Mazda had sponsored one of the rides, but other than that, there was no branding. There are music stages, theatres, lots of restaurants and food stands, a kids' play area, and a good assortment of rides and amusements. There's also a garden, and I was quite amused to see that many of the planters contained vegetables. As we were walking past, we could have picked fresh tomatoes, eggplants, rhubarb or squash.
We arrived as the park opened at 11 am. It was quite empty, but unfortunately none of the rides opened for another hour, some not opening until 2 pm. It gave us time to survey the grounds. Then we started going on ride after ride. Sarah was very happy; ecstatic nearly. We let her lead us on our walks. The lines remained quite short because it's a weekday and Danish children started school this week; we were able to get onto any ride in a minute or two.
I ended up going on the chair ride below by myself. I think it was the scariest ride in the park, especially so for anyone who is mechanically minded. As you are flung about high above the city, you try not to think about how the failure of any link in the chain could send you flying out of the park.
Sarah and I also took in the shooting gallery.
We had lunch in a biergarten. I was talked into a litre of Paulaner Salvator. It cost just a little more than a half litre. And I was sharing it with Margo. (Honest!)
I had bratwurst; Margo had schnitzel and Sarah had spare ribs. My sausage came with a great-tasting mustard and a sweet tomato ketchup-like sauce, but thicker with vegetable chunks. And it was accompanied by these very nicely spiced potato slices. Fantastic! It was like a trap laid just for me. I felt like if I kept eating and drinking, I would turn into a pig like the parents in Spirited Away. But of course, I cleaned my plate.
We continued on our rides with good cases of the giggles. But first, some desserts.
On the boat ride, I was trying to remember some sea chanties, so I'm actually doing a yo-ho-ho in this picture, not just pumping my arm.
Around 4 pm we decided to take a break and crossed the street to the train station, walked through the station, and crossed the street to our hotel, where we had a few hours of cartoons and naps.
We returned to the park in the early evening. As the sun set, we rode a Ferris wheel, but you won't see it because our staff photographer was taking a break. We also went to the kids' play area, having first purchased some Carlsberg Special brown ale from the pub below it. We sipped our ale whilst watching Sarah's Muppet-like head bobbing on the bouncy platform, thinking, we couldn't do this at Disneyland. You know, beer and happiness are often found together, and I believe there may be a correlation.
We set off to get some dinner at a "gourmet" burger restaurant, to have our first disappointing dining experience in Denmark. The burger (Margo and I split it) was overcooked and quite bland, the moniker "gourmet" earned solely through the creative choice of build-your-own condiments.
As darkness fell, the park filled considerably. Queues for rides were much longer, so we only had a few more rides (which we'd been on previously) before finding some ice cream and then walking home.
posted by Michael Nelson at 12:27 pm
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