My 30th Birthday Surprise Holiday
So, as some of you are aware, I turned 30 last week and Nance, being the thoroughly lovely girl that she is, has been planning to take me away on a holiday for months and months. I had absolutely no idea where we were going ... all I knew was that we were flying somewhere and then getting a train somewhere else whilst we were there and that the currency was not the Euro.
So, it was a very much pleasant surprise that on arrival at Stansted Airport that we were off to Denmark, for a few days in Billund (the home of Lego and the original Legoland) and then Copenhagen! To say that I was surprised and delighted is a bit of an understatement!
I'd got v excited on the Stansted Express train when I saw some people will labels on their suitcases mentioning Billund, but Nance played a straight poker face and pretended not to know where that was or what the significance was so gave nothing away ... sneaky devil, she is!
So, after a short plane journey and a taxi ride, we arrived at Legoland Village, which was rather focused on kiddies, but provided us with perfectly pleasant accomodation. It was late afternoon, so we just kinda got ourselves settled, had a buffet tea in the Village, had a wander around the place (saw bunnies, goats and a guinea pig in a zoo type thing) and played on the playground before retiring to bed.
Spent the next day in Legoland ... now, this was great for me, because not only do I love Lego ( durr!! ) but I'd been here before, albeit about 25 years ago. So not only did I get to look at loads of Lego stuff, but it was also like a memory trail for me, seeing which bits I could remember. Somethings only came back to me when I was stood in front of them, such as Mount Rushmoor and Chief Sitting Bull
and also various rides such as the mine train and the log rollercoaster type things. We basically wandered around the whole park on the first day, although my camera batteries died part way through, so I couldn't take pictures for much of the day. Still, we had a 2 day pass, so I could take pics the next day ;)
Went on as many rides as I could fit on ... it was good, cos it's early season so there were no queues whatsoever. I was particularly impressed by the new Pirate Ship Ride ... especially spraying people on the ride with water when we were stood on the side ... MUHAHA! Oh and the Power Builder ride was awesome ... you choose the moves you want to do and then you sit in a chair attached to a multiple articulated robot arm which throws you around for a couple of minutes! Totally nuts ... took my breath away - although this may also be partly due to the bars being rather tight ;)
Other than that, we generally just larked around and behaved like kids as much as possible ;)
We wandered around the shop (too expensive!) and the discount market (prices with discounts the same as UK retail!) and then went back to our room ... chilled out for a bit and then went to Hotel Legoland for their excellent, but expensive, buffet. Worth it though, for I had Lego chips! :D
After dinner, we had a wander down the road and saw some Lego type offices and vowed to come back the next day to investigate!
Following day we had the morning in Legoland again, where I took a load more piccies and we did a few more rides and then we decided to spend the afternoon by first checking out what Billund town centre had to offer (answer = not a lot) but we did have a nice walk via the Scuplture Park and find some more Lego offices (Marketing and Development I think) who had rooms and rooms full of mint in sealed box old Lego sets ... I was very jealous.
After we got back, we had a soak in the local swimming pool and jacuzzi, which was v relaxing and then ended up in a nearby hotel restaurant for a disappointing meal. Filled a whole, nonetheless.
The following day, we had an adventure on a bus and a train to Copenhagen, travelling through some very nice countryside en route and going over a long bridge over the sea and through an 8km long tunnel! fun fun
Copenhagen was good fun ... we did lots of wandering around and nicely the weather got better over the few days we were there - I particularly liked the Rundetarn and Tivoli Gardens. We saw all the major places of interest and took lots of pictures, which you can see here. I had a bit of a cold after the first day which made me feel a bit miserable, but I soon got over it courtesy of the medical kit we took.
Our main observation of Denmark is that it's an expensive place to be a tourist ... eating out and buying food & drink generally are much more expensive that then UK. Although I suspect if we were natives, our pay would reflect the higher cost of living and therefore it wouldn't be such an issue.
Still, I very much enjoyed Denmark ... the people were friendly and even though some claimed their English wasn't that good, it was good enough for us! hehe
So, in conclusion ... it was a lovely way to spend my birthday ... oodles of thanks to Nance for booking it all. She truely rocks my world ! (put hearts here if I could remember the code! :P)