Tivoli

Star Flyer

And so the goodbyes begin. It's quite a strange feeling really, and as well as saying goodbye to people, we are also saying goodbye to places as well. Tivoli was first on the list as it closed for the season recently... 

The Little Pilot

As the first place we visited together as a family, (almost as soon as our feet touched Danish soil), I will always have a soft spot for Tivoli. We have plenty of happy memories from the many (many) times we visited. For those people that are about to move to Copenhagen, this will be one of the places that you visit the most, believe me (make sure you buy a season ticket, it will pay for itself in a few trips!)!  We took so many guests here, that at times I will admit to being thoroughly sick of the place, but it was really nice to visit it one last time to bid it a fond farewell.

The Galley Ships

 We had to make sure that we went on almost every single ride for old times sake, bidding farewell to our favourites, Den Flyvende Kuffart (The Flying Trunk), a trip through the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, (which it is worth alone for a listen to the English narration -. when you get to the Little Match Girl listen out for the part about the "gooooze"), The Mine (a leisurely journey through a "diamond mine", complete with giant sneezing pink dragon), The Galley Ships with its manicly spinning viking ships, and a couple of turns on the traditional and very beautiful carousel.  The first time Small Boy ever went on this he started off astride a small rhinocerous.  The ride turned once, and the rhinocerous reappeared without him.  Panic gripped, until I saw him high upon the giraffe's back, he had obviously had a change of heart!

We saved the best, the glorious Rutschebane  for last (and went on it 4 times in a row)...    This elderly wooden roller coaster (one of the oldest in the world) comes with a brake person for each train, employed soley to deploy the brakes before and after each big dip (can you imagine that job?)! This is a ride we all love, and you can't help but laugh most of the way round (I do shut my eyes at the top, where it looks like you could go careering off the edge though)... I remember my Dad convincing my Step-Mother that this ride was really tame, but all you could hear was her screaming "Oh my Gaaawd" all the way around! It's fantastic in a chuck you out of your seat, leave your stomach behind kind of way, and my strange children both adore it (sit at the very back for maximum effect!)... 

Tivoli will reopen in a few days for Halloween, when it's covered with thousands of pumpkins of all shapes and sizes, and then of course in December with it's Christmas Market, and its myriad of potent Gløgg and æbleskiver stalls... Sights all worth seeing, but to me, Tivoli will always be best late on a summer's evening, when it's quiet, and when you will see people that have been going their whole lives, relaxing and enjoying themselves...

Postmand Per

Or Postman Pat as he is better known in the UK would LOVE the Post & Tele Museum in Copenhagen.  As one of the last few remaining child-friendly museum's we had on our list to visit before we depart, we popped over to check it out.

The Sorting Office (with one post-person on strike!...)

There's the most fabulous children's section spread out over the third floor, with a couple of rooms based on Danish stamp illustrations, complete with big slides and trees to climb (!), and another with lots of post to deliver! My miniature post people spent a good hour sorting the mail, stamping it, and then delivering it to an assortment of  lilliputian houses...very cute, especially with their long flailing uniform jacket arms, and oversized postman hats.

We had a quick refill in the beautiful restaurant/cafe overlooking the roof-tops of the city. It also overlooks the Roundtower, so we had a laugh at Small Boy's expense as we reminisced over the fateful afternoon we spent there!

Back inside we learned about braille and how to punch out our names using the Braille alphabet. Both children were fascinated with this and learned alot about how visually impaired people use computers and telephones etc.

Then it was onto the main floor of the museum, which is full of really interesting stuff (although I will admit to being dubious about this before we went inside!). There are lots of machines to fiddle about with, some of which neither Small Boy or his Big Sister had ever seen before, including this beautiful Telegram Machine. Unfortunately Bulgus insisted on making a guest appearance in this photograph, please ignore him. I try to.

The most fun was had on a beautiful old wooden operating switchboard with all the wires and buttons etc. still intact. Small boy was the designated "operator" and was put in charge of putting calls through to his sister who was "on hold" on a telephone quite far across the other side of the room. All was going swimmingly, until she started asking him to put her through to double-digit numbers such as 25 and 37, which at the age of 4 he is still just getting the hang of!  After much dawdling and hesistation on behalf of "the operator", the rather irate "caller" lost her temper and shouted across the room "Could you please just put me through to someone who knows what they are doing??"... Which is still making me laugh at least 24 hours after the event.

 A great museum, with good exhibitions and great facilities, and best of all - it's free!

The Experimentarium

I know I have spoken about The Experimentarium previously, but I can't stress enough that if you have young children and you are moving to Copenhagen, or you are just passing through, you must make sure you visit this place. If you are here for a while, it really makes sense to buy a season ticket, a couple of visits and it's paid for itself. Trust me, you will visit so often that it doesn't make sense not to have one, it has been a real life saver here for me at times!

We hadn't visited for a while, and I was somewhat hesitant about going as the Body Worlds exhibition is currently there (it's now there until the 4th September), albeit in a separate area away from the main part of the museum. I wasn't sure about my two viewing it as they are still so small, but it was quite hard to avoid on arrival and it intrigued them, so we decided to test the water by starting off with the tame stuff in the glass case in the foyer, and they were completely fascinated. Obviously, I didn't overly stress to them that what they were viewing had actually been real once upon a time, but they certainly weren't scared by it! It turned out that it wouldn't have mattered if we had chosen not to visit, as there was a Body World exhibit hanging in the main part of the museum anyway, but I kind of find it refreshing that they don't hide certain things from children here, and they don't stop them from doing certain things in case it upsets them (sheep's heart and lung dissection for three year olds anyone?), life is life and there's certainly no pretending about things.

It's really nice because the displays constantly change so you are not visiting the same old stuff again and again too. This time there was a huge area dedicated to animal senses. Small boy immediately took off and spent a good ten minutes being a bee pollinating flowers, cheered on by a gathering of Japanese tourists, all snapping away and exclaiming how "Kawai" (cute) he was... I think he rather enjoyed performing for the cameras somewhat!

As always the staff are on hand to help you out, give direction, or explain stuff to the children. This time my six year old was eager to take part in a real experiment.... Meet Egg.

Egg was given to us in a plastic bag containing 3 straws, a balloon, some paper, some string and some sellotape. The idea was to design a protective container for Egg, using the given materials only, so that he would survive being slung off a high balcony without being smashed. Unfortunately for them, my children had the wrong parent with them. Their engineering father would have proved to be a much more reliable science partner, but nonetheless we came up with the idea to encapsulate Egg inside the balloon first before blowing it up, and then sticking stuff around the balloon to help him survive the fall. Three times we successfully managed to get him inside the balloon, successfully inflated it, and three times, the six year old managed to burst it rather loudly with what turned out to be a jagged nail. Constantly asking for balloons from the "Scientist" was getting a bit embarrassing, and Small Boy was at this stage sitting with his hands firmly clamped over his ears, so we decided on a different tactic...The Six Year Old really enjoyed the experiment, and her brother enjoyed being picked up by his rather glamorous assistant so that he could see Egg descend rather quickly, and be smashed into smithereens on the floor below. Apparently next time I have to stay at home, and Daddy's going with them. I might sneak along anyway and take a book and sit in the cafe, because that's also nice!We will miss this place, it's pretty special.

Gallery Gallavanting

A rainy inset day spent at the National Gallery of Denmark (or Statens Museum for Kunst as it's better known in these parts), with my miniature art critic. She had wanted to visit the children's workshop similar to the fantastic one in Louisiana, but it's only open to school groups during the week unfortunately, so we watched a quirky art video called "Wild Horses" instead. She pronounced this "far more interesting than Black Beauty" (and it was also much shorter thankfully)! R decided she wasn't in much of a drawing mood on this particular occasion, which I couldn't help be secretly disappointed by as I was hoping for a similar masterpiece to her Little Dancer Portrait that she did at the Glyptotek...

It is worth a visit though, if not only for the building itself - the Danes do big architectural spaces well, and some of the exhibition rooms are beautiful (plus it's free to get in!)! Do check beforehand though if there's something you particularly want to see, a big section was closed for rehanging this visit, and the advertised Children's collection was nowhere to be seen...

All Things Skeletal....

What better to do on a wet and windy afternoon in Copenhagen? Visit the Zoological Museum of course...Especially if you have a little boy who is obsessed with all things skeletal, slimy, dissected or stuffed (and a young girl who claims not to be interested in such "boys" things, but is secretly fascinated...). OK, it's not the biggest Museum in the world, but it's stuffed to the rafters with interesting and strangely arranged exhibits, (I do think they need to find a taxidermist with a bit more imagination in some instances though - see above!) but this place can more than happily fill up a couple of hours (you are also encouraged to touch and feel your way around a lot of the displays here, which the children loved!).

.

The whale skeletons are really impressive, especially the Bowhead with its baleen (or frond like "teeth" useful for corsets and collar stiffeners once upon a time I believe) intact, although R wanted to know why it had a curtain in its mouth. S is still making a recovery from his rather spectacular tummy bug, so I am sure we could have actually spent longer here, but doubtless we will return.

I will leave you with my favourite photograph of the day, I have called it "How Long Did You Say You've Been Waiting For The Bus?"

Nearly Bare.....

This is the walnut tree in our garden. My parents once had a village pub called exactly that, and guess what? It had a walnut tree in front of it! It's still there I think, although it was the victim of many an accident, including a Robin Reliant exploding underneath it. The walnut tree in our garden is hanging on to its last few leaves for now, but the garden is covered so you can guess what we will be mostly doing this weekend! It hasn't produced many walnuts this year though. According to English folklore, you are supposed to whack the trunk with a stick to produce a good crop the following year... a good job for stick boy!

We have had a crazy couple of weeks what with half term and the like. Our first lot of guests arrived on the Thursday of half term, in time to visit Halloween Tivoli on the Friday. They loved it and couldn't get over how many pumpkins there were, it was also much warmer than Halloween Tivoli last year which was a good thing, but it was sooo much busier... I don't think Halloween was that big in Denmark until recently, but (like the UK) it gets bigger each year, and Tivoli's marketing is obviously working! Our three year old was given some candyfloss which was nearly as big as him. After a few minutes he began to look like one of the X-men with a bright orange, very sticky sugar crust over his entire face and hands. A woman pushed passed us on her way out and got rid of most of it for me when she walked off with half of it stuck to the side of her coat. She was in too much of a rush for me to be able to tell her, so I expect she was really pleased to discover that later on! But luckily the small boy was completely oblivious to the fact that half of it had disappeared. Horrendous stuff!

On the Saturday we went to the Frilands for their last day before closing for the winter. They had a great festival in the form of a 17th/18th century carnival which was fantastic! The kids loved the "circus" and the pretend strong man and performers. At the end of the show, they announced that a "beautiful lady" was about to perform, out came a girl with a large blouse with fake arms attached. Her real arms (or rather elbows) formed her "boobs" under the blouse which she then moved about in time to music. The children all stood saucer-eyed at this, their faces were a picture. I would have taken a picture of them, but it definitely would have had camera shake as I was laughing too much. At the end of her performance, she leaned forward and produced two material boobs out of the front of her blouse. After she had left the stage, we asked our three year old what she had done. He said "she showed us her cakes..."!!! Bless!

Sunday we went for a long walk through the forest. Our friends couldn't get over the amazing autumn display we are enjoying at the moment. I don't remember last year being like this, it is pretty breathtaking, although rapidly disappearing in the wind...I don't know whether the bitterly cold winter had something to do with the amazing colours perhaps, but I love it! I don't think I could ever live somewhere that didn't enjoy a good autumn!

That afternoon, I had a text message, it simply said, "see you Friday!" I immediately knew who it was from - my father, a Yorkshireman of limited text words! Hence the lack of blog, for which I apologise, but we have been too busy gallavanting to Sweden (and various other places) where we drove down towards Ystad again, this time stopping at a tiny fishing port called Abbekås. When we got there we were flagging as it was past lunchtime, so we took a chance (it was Sweden after all!) on a small place there called Abbekås Hamnkrog for lunch. What a find! The owners are so friendly and welcoming and the food was wonderful! I had plaice with roasted beetroot in lemon and a beurre blanc. It was huge and delicious and I didn't have room for the potatoes. The children had authentic swedish meatballs made to a family recipe (with the nicest mashed potato I have ever had) with lingonberry jam, and my Husband and Dad both had plates of herring and smoked eel. This place is also a hotel, it's peaceful, the food is excellent and the staff act like you are their very first (and best) customers - what more could you ask for?

A couple more days to enjoy my Dad's company before he goes back home. I will update again shortly - honest!

Emma

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

I love this place. Started by Carl Jacobsen, the founder of the Carslberg Brewery, who decided to make his sizeable private collection public, in this beautiful building just around the corner from Tivoli. It's worth doing a guided tour if you book in time, I always find I learn a lot more about these kind of places by doing that occasionally. We did the Highlights Tour last week, and an hours tour included a visit to the Egyptian mummies in the vault, various statues by the likes of Rodin (including The Kiss, which is just beautiful and is based upon Dante's Inferno if you didn't know - I didn't!), and a tiny corner of its vast art section. My favourite had to be the Van Gogh collection, where amongst others we saw the beautiful "Mountainous Landscape Behind St Paul Hospital" which depicts a view from the mental institute in St Remys where he was a patient at the time. Around a year after he had painted this, Van Gogh shot himself in the stomach, apparently in this very same field (so the story goes). He died a couple of days later. He only sold one single painting during his life time, and his brother's widow was advised to burn all of his work that she owned at that time. Very luckily she didn't. Other works here include the lovely Degas Little Ballet Dancer of 14 Years in Bronze , and a stack of other famous works of art by artists such as Picasso, Manet, Renoir and Monet. We had lunch in the gorgeous Winter Gardens, but they are currently filming a very popular cookery show here, so you must book if you want a guaranteed table - the cakes are gargantuan (but with a price to match - see there's always a downside to everything!). There's plenty more to see aside from the art collection, including a huge collection of ancient artifacts in the basement. One word of warning. Make sure your mobile phone is switched off, and do not switch it back on again until you leave. I came here months ago with one of my best friends, and made the mistake of switching a phone back on just to see what the time was, whereupon an untimely SMS announced it's arrival, and we were reduced to two sniggering school girls again after a very hefty telling off from an officious museum guard. I think she enjoys her job a little too much (she resides with the artefacts section in the basement - you have been warned!). Enjoy...

The Round Tower...

My youngest sister has been visiting for a few days this week. On Thursday we ventured into Copenhagen where, after a lovely lunch we decided to climb the Round Tower. You get a fantastic view from the top and the slope to climb the tower and the lack of stairs means it's a novelty for the children who loved running up and down again. Once we got to the top we stood to admire the view. It was a beautiful sunny day and it's very peaceful up there. Well, at least it was until a small child started screaming. Looking around to see what the problem was, I realised it was my small child. With his head stuck through the railings. You always hear about this happening, but I never really thought that it did! The drama lasted for all of five minutes, with me imagining how "thrilled" the Roundtower staff were going to be when the fire brigade had to slice through the antique metal bars with cutting equipment to release him. His sister also started panicking and the people around us began to crowd and stare, when suddenly, just as quickly as it had begun, I managed to manaeouvre his head back through the bars again. Do visit if you get the chance, the view is so beautiful, just don't be tempted to go for a closer look!

As it was my sisters birthday last night we went to Ruby for celebratory drinks. This place is amazing. If you could pick this bar up and put it in London, I wouldn't go as a) it would be too busy and b) it would be overpriced and overhyped, but this has to be my favourite bar in Copenhagen so far. It's in a beautiful old residential apartment overlooking the parliamentary buildings, the staff are super friendly and the cocktails are amazing. If you go, don't tell anyone else about it OK?

Off to London for a week today, can't wait to get home and see the family and stock up on teabags!

Emma xx

Constant Sunshine (and Suffocating Heat)!

The weather decided for us that Breakfast at the beach was in order this morning! We made a hasty picnic (plus all important flask of tea), and left home just before 8.30. The light was beautiful, the temperature perfect and we had a lovely couple of hours before we left to go back home at 10.30, just as it was getting busy and too hot! The weather has been spectacular for the last two weeks, perfect for my in-laws who have actually returned to Florida with a tan! We managed to pack an awful lot in while they were here. The various trips of course included our favourite Frilands Museet,where the children learned how to spin wool and Tadci earned his picnic lugging them around in a wooden cart. Numerous picnics on the beach, followed by copious amounts of ice cream (and coke floats!), the obligatory Tivoli, and Sweden for a day where we searched out Swedish meatballs in Lund(and a giant in the vaults of the Cathedral - although we couldn't find him!), and stocked up on BBQ food at the supermarket! Then the grand castle tour, when we packed in three in a day,Krongborg slot (aka Elsinore - who also has another much more impressive giant in it's vaults, but we will visit him another day), Fredensborg, the Queen's summer residence where we explored the gardens (only open to the public in July - get off the grass!!), and Frederiksborg in Hillerod which is my favourite, it's stunningly beautiful and quite the wedding conveyor-belt at weekends. We also did a central Copenhagen canal boat trip which we haven't done before, it was lovely but the day was so stiflingly hot, I am looking forward to doing it again on a cooler day. My In-laws also very kindly babysat one evening, and as the weather was too warm to sit in a formal restaurant, we decided to be tourists for the evening and go to Tivoli, where we ate at Grøften, one of the oldest and most traditional restaurants in Tivoli, it's a bit of an institution. We dined on Danish asparagus and fjord rejer (tiny fresh water shrimp),

and shared a lovely bottle of La Motte Wine from Franschoek where we got married many moons ago, it was a great evening (later in the week we bought a tub of the tiny fjord rejer and made our guests work for their supper, although they are very fiddly to peel, the shrimps are really sweet,and only available for a couple of months over the summer so well worth trying if you can)! It's definitely a restaurant that's been added to our list of places to take guests, the food is good, and the atmosphere's great!

A quiet week at home awaits before we go to Skagen next weekend.

National Museet

S and I went to the National Museet on Monday. It's not a huge museum, but it is worth a visit. It has a great Children's Museum with a Viking section, a small castle, a 1920's classroom, a sweet replica Pakistani market stall, and a strange horse. As with most things for children in Denmark, it's a really hands-on place to encourage learning through play and S really enjoyed it for an hour or so. Here's my little Viking on his ship . I found out afterwards rather morbidly it's a copy of a funereal ship called the Gokstad from 10th century Norway. It was one of four small ships that an important Viking chieftain took with him on his journey to the kingdom of the dead, along with carriages, horses and other goods and chattels. Maybe that's what the strange horse is there for... After we had finished in this section, we had a quick look around the rest of the museum (I must remember to take some change with me for a locker next time, you aren't allowed to take bags into a lot of museums here so I spent most of the time expecting to be told off!). I had wondered how much a three year old would actually enjoy the real exhibits, but he seemed to really like it. He especially loved the Viking part and the skeletal frame of a real Viking Boat. He also thought their "treasure" was great, and was fascinated by the Egtved Girl. These kind of displays have always made me feel quite sad in a way, I am sure they are informative and very educational, but I am not sure I would want to be on display for thousands of people to gawp at everyday, no-matter how well-preserved I might end up, it just seems slightly disrespectful to me... On our way back to the train station the skies looked rather foreboding, hopefully we hadn't incurred somebody's wrath (this is the back view of the Radhusplasen)! The "monsoon" rains held off until yesterday, they finally finished yesterday evening when a thick mist arose making it seem very eerie out there.

It's another holiday here today, we didn't do a lot, just caught up with a few jobs around the house. Tomorrow I am hoping to take the children to Louisiana Museum of Modern art...will let you know how we get on!

Veruca Salt & Furniture Shopping...

Another weekend draws to a close. We went to Bakken today. We hadn't actually planned to, but felt like we should as we were nearby and the last time we attempted to go, all the rides were closed. Bakken is slightly less salubrious compared to Tivoli, but I don't actually think you can really compare the two. It's not as manicured, but it's more relaxed in a lot of ways, and certainly less busy (could have been due to the weather though). It's in a beautiful location, and the history of the place is very impressive, the very fact that it's the oldest (intact) theme park in the world impressed me, you can imagine what it was once like...The huge, incredibly old-looking wooden roller coaster isn't getting me anywhere near it though(should we go again)! There is a good choice of restaurants here,and the traditional beer hall looked fun! We had flaeskesteg rolls for lunch, (roast pork with crackling) piled high with gherkins and red cabbage, they were good, and very typical Danish fast food! The children had a great afternoon and went on quite a few rides - very brave when it was quite cold and threatening to rain (funny how they still wanted ice-creams though, doesn't matter what the weather's like for that, and yes, that is a child size ice-cream!!)... ! I am not sure what has happened to spring actually, the weather has decided to rewind itself somewhat recently, we have even had the fire lit again for the past couple of nights.

On Friday afternoon we had an open house at R's school. This time they were to show us some of the gymnastic skills they had been working on over the term. I was "delighted" to note that R was less than enthusiastic about this display, so when some other mothers told me that they would be taking leotards for their daughters to change into, I thought it might cheer mine up if I did the same! I arrived a few minutes before the display with her ballet kit in hand as a surprise. She is so like me in many respects (the sport hating gene is definitely one of my mine), but amazingly (and very unlike me) she is actually very graceful (yes, even if I do say so myself!!) and her ballet skills are good, but as I have yet to find an English speaking ballet class here, she hasn't actually worn her outfit for several months...She certainly loved the surprise and quickly got changed into her leotard like her class mates! All was going swimmingly, until she found her ballet shoes at the bottom of the bag. Why on earth I hadn't remembered them and taken them out is just beyond me, of course they weren't going to fit her after all these months. Thus followed what could have been a scene from Cinderella, they just weren't going to fit, no-matter how hard she tried to squeeze her feet into them. Then without warning, my tiny, excited and almost enthusiastic daughter, transformed into a furious Veruca Salt banshee type creature... It took quite a while to placate her, but afterwards she explained to me that although she loved the surprise, it was actually a horrible surprise that her shoes didn't fit anymore, and she was quite sure that they would have made all the difference to her scissor jump! As I am sure I have said before, we do indeed live and learn as parents! However, she performed as planned! The display was very sweet, and all the children did very well. Meanwhile, S had a great time jumping like a mad thing on a huge crashmat at the back of the room, while the show was taking place.

Inspired by the poor weather, on Saturday we decided that the search for a new sofa really did need to start. We outgrew our two seater sofa almost five years after we bought it (ten years ago from that awful UK chain DFS). We weren't married then and lived in a typical London (very old and very badly sound-proofed) conversion flat a couple of stories up. I remember that we ordered the sofa, the delivery men arrived to install it and then it just wouldn't go up the stairs! A quick trip back to the shop confirmed that once you had ordered and paid for the sofa, they didn't care how you got it into your property,or whether you used it as garden furniture - it was no longer their problem! Not one to give up, my engineer husband found a way for it to be hoisted up through the sash window using a large rope, where it came back down the same way a couple of years later when we moved out! Anyway, as we currently have two more family members, who have helped trash it, it's more than time to buy a new one... It was refreshing to note that IKEA in Scandinavia is as hellish as it is in the UK on a Saturday! We bid a hasty retreat to the less hectic world of ILVA where we both fell in love... with different pieces of furniture. I am yet to convince him that my sofa is the best, as he is to convince me that his is the best. I bet I give in first just to get a new one...

I made Delia's twice baked Goat's cheese souffle's last night (did I mention the weather was bad) . They turned out very nicely (note they are supposed to sink back down, the second time you bake them they puff up beautifully) and I would have really enjoyed them had I not really burned myself taking them out of the oven. An excellent fool-proof recipe though, I highly recommend making them!

A short week ahead, we have another holiday on Thursday which means no school on Friday either...

Speak soon.

Emma