Our Final Day in Copenhagen - Tivoli

We saved the best for last in Copenhagen.

  Tivoli - one of the oldest amusement parks in the world and widely recognized as the major source of inspiration to Walt Disney and his parks. We got to Tivoli a little early, so we stood around near the gate, surrounded by school children on a field trip. First time in a while I have felt tall in a crowd of people!

On entering the park we we met by uniformed workers, immaculately groomed grounds, and exotic birds of all sorts just wandering around, like this peacock.  Later in the day I was chased away by a goose (or a gander) for some infraction I'm still not sure I committed. The weather in the morning was gray and chilly, but by the end of the day the skies cleared and we put away our jackets.  

The other thing we saw on entering Tivoli was a pallet of beer kegs. A pallet of kegs ... of beer. Lots of beer.  I almost grabbed a keg and ran for it.  But in the end you only really rent beer anyway (think about it) so I decided that a Danish prison wasn't worth it.      We wandered the park for much of the day. Past Hans Christian Andersen's Castle, the giant frigate in the middle of the central lagoon, under and around terrifying and tame rides and roller coasters.  We had an early dinner at one of the restaurants in Tivoli, Faergekroens Bryghus. it features the classic open-faced sandwich, the smørrebrød, and it's own microbrew. It's really wrong to call it a sandwich. It's really a thick piece of buttered dark bread piled high - in my case - with layers of roast beef, potato salad, lettuce, tomato, pickles, onions and a whole bunch of other stuff, too.  The "sandwich" was awesome. The house brew was nasty. 

Views of Tivoli

    Fortunately Dad and I had enjoyed much better beer, by the liter, at the park's German Bierhaus, earlier in the day!  You see, he and I had decided that we could either ride a few rides or have a liter of beer and a pretzel (it wouldn't be safe to do both, trust me.) it wasn't a tough choice.        

  The entrance fee to Tivoli is 99 Danish kroner, roughly equivalent to US$15.00. After that, you buy ride tickets (25 kroner each, about $3.75) for the rides you want to try. The "better" rides can cost up to 3 ride tickets.  There are plenty of things to do without riding the rides. There are concerts, marching bands, exhibitions, and the beauty and whimsy of the gardens themselves.        After our day at the park we returned to the hostel for our last night before leaving early the next morning for Gothenberg, Sweden. I convinced my Dad to have one more drink in the Generator's bar before retiring. Unfortunately, I think that his second liter of beer for the day retired HIM...

Dad has the uncanny ability to hold any beverage upright while snoring heavily.

  Stay tuned for my next report from Gothenberg, Sweden!