Day 1: Groningen - Billund - Aalborg
At an unearthly hour (well, 7 am) we set out on the road. First destination: Billund.
Tweety's engine was humming happily, the tarmac of the German autobahn a blur beneath its wheels, we were making good progress! Well... for the first thirty minutes at least. It was about then that I realised that I had packed my camera but had left my compact flash card in my computer. So basically I would not be able to take pictures unless I bought a new card. And even in this day of digital cameras compact flash cards are still more difficult to come by than old fashioned film.
Fortunately Germany is the home of my favourite electronics store chain: Mediamarkt. I figured there'd be literally one in each town, and to my joy I was proven right when we stopped for a toilet break at a gas station near Oldenburg and indeed there was a huge concrete building with the well-known red lettering right next to the gas station.
A couple of hours later we were approaching Kiel, which would be the last big city before the Danish border, and in the past hours we had not seen a single Mediamarkt (or any other electronics store) anywhere. Near Kiel we spotted a sign 'Ikea next exit' and I decided to take my chances that there would be some sort of shopping mall near that Ikea, and took the exit. Unfortunately the 'next exit' turned out to be 30 more kilometres of Autobahn leading to Kiel.
Tim was slightly less amused but agreed we might as well continue to Kiel and buy a card there.
Well, to cut a long story short, we found the Ikea, there was a Mediamarkt next door, they did sell compact flash cards and the whole detour only took us an hour.
Fortunately we didn't have to drive the whole 30km back to the highway where we'd come from, but instead we could take a different route north. And soon we crossed the border into Denmark, where the surroundings barely changed apart from the speed limit and the language of the road signs.
A couple of hours onwards we were approaching our first destination for the day: Billund. When we had decided to take the Fredrikshavn - Göteborg ferry to Sweden I immediately thought of visiting this place. Billund, after all, is the home of the original Legoland themepark. Ever since I was a kid I'd wanted to go there, and though perhaps 25 years late, I would not let this opportunity pass.
However, as we were approaching the place I was getting worried.
I phoned up a colleague of mine and asked her to check the Legoland website for an address which we could enter in the SatNav. Turned out I need not have worried.
Mobile phone... SatNav... digital camera... I must say that for someone who is used to travelling with not much more than a backpack and a general idea of direction, this morning was worryingly dominated by technology.
Anyway, Legoland (see review below). That was fun. More fun than I had anticipated actually. As a kid I used to play day and night with those plastic bricks. And I played with them for ages, really. Well... as you grow older attention shifts somewhat of course... mainly towards girls really... who didn't share my idea of building spaceships out of plastic bricks being cool.
What I hadn't expected, I loved the first section the most! This is where miniature cities/countries have been built and it is just superbly done. We have a miniature park in The Netherlands, which I never cared much for, but seeing it all built from Lego bricks certainly adds an extra dimension. And apart from the city/country expositions at the first part of the park, throughout the park the animals, statues, buildings, etc are built from the plastic bricks. Up to and including a huge skull island in the middle of 'Pirate Bay'
The rest of the park was fun, although somewhat tame (as can be expected from a park which targets mainly towards the under 12s).
And after those two hours we'd seen and done pretty much all of it, which made me realise that this is in fact an incredibly expensive park considering the few attractions it contains. You'd be hard pressed keeping yourself entertained for a full day here!
Nonetheless I was glad to have finally visited the place, some 25 years after I first asked my dad if we could go some time. (he said yes, but we never went - the b@stard)
We moved on northwards, to the city of Aalborg where we would spend the first night.
We found a nice place for a meal though, which became a whole lot nicer when at 9 o'clock dinner menus were swapped for cocktail lists, and they announced cocktail happy hour - two for the price of one. For those who don't know yet, alcohol in Scandinavia is expensive - ridiculously expensive - so any alcohol related freebie is a must!
All in all it was a good first day.
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Legoland is an amusement park obviously set up for young children, however, there is enough for adults to enjoy as well to warrant a visit.
The first half of the park is like a miniature park, like Madurodam or Miniatura. However, with an obvious twist -you guessed it- all the miniatures are built from lego bricks. There is a large section depicting various aspects of Danish life, including sections of Copenhagen, the royal palace and a true to scale exact copy of nearby Billund airport.
However, there are also other countries depicted, like Norway, Sweden, Germany and The Netherlands, all with some of those countries known sites rebuild to scale with lego bricks.
Further on are some bits of the US, with Hollywood, LA and Cape Canaveral, and, somewhat surprisingly, Japan.
All models contain many moving parts, like cars moving down the streets as if they are running freely, boats running along slightly less convincing cables, trains running along lego tracks and, most impressively several of the country expositions have working locks with ships sailing in and out of them.
Throughout the rest of the park there are many animals and figures created from Lego. Either along the rides, like the Safari and Canoe Log Ride, which both have all kinds of animals created out of lego. Or as decoration at each of the 7 park areas, like images from the Wild West in 'LEGOREDO' and a huge skull island in 'PIRATE LAND'.
There aren't many thrill rides in the park, although there are three roller coasters. The first is a kiddie coaster, which runs three rounds through along rocks and boulders. The second is a Wild Mouse coaster, which has been redesigned lego style as 'Lego Racers'. This is, by the way, probably the most thrilling ride.
However, the best of the three coasters is 'The Dragon' which starts as a scenic ride through the catacombs of a Medieval castle, in which several scenes of life in the middle ages has been depicted in Lego bricks. Then it speeds up for a short roller coaster run outside the castle. The coaster is particularly special for the fact that the propulsion comes from a magnetic track, rather than gravity which is normal with roller coasters. So in a unique twist this roller coaster actually contains some sections where going uphill goes faster than downhill!
However, the most original ride in the park is the 'Power Builder' a robotic arm which lifts up two people and can move in any possible direction. The twist here is that people going on the ride can program the exact movement of the arm for their ride. So whether you wish to have a very gentle merry go around, or a white knuckle upside down twister - anything is possible.
Another attraction worth mentioning is the 4D cinema, where 3D images are enhanced with light effects, wind, water and even snow.
Though the entrance of the park is rather expensive compared to parks in Netherlands, Belgium or Germany, especially when considering that you can see the entire park in under two hours, it is worth it though. These days there are Legoland parks in the UK and US as well, but this is the original one, in the country that invented the plastic bricks.
