Denmark day 8

We've had the most ridiculously enjoyable day out today, at a place called Faarup Sommerland. It's a theme park - but before you get all overexcited, there wasn't a Disney princess in sight.

The place is set in woodland (good for keeping the wind at bay), about 5 minutes' drive from where we're staying. Its theme, such as it is, seems to be woods/logging/squirrels/goldmining...that sort of thing. We thought it might be good for a couple of hours of wandering around, and going on a few rides - boy were we wrong!

M started off by riding an Icelandic pony, and followed this up with a little light dodgem boats, a carousel and assorted biplanes (the sort that go round and round and up and down). We bounced a lot on trampolines, and climbed a bouncy volcano.


One of the things we really liked about this place was that there were a lot of active things to do, as well as rides to sit in. There were lots of playgrounds, an enormous climbing spider web (like at the zoo), and a fabulous action trail/treasure hunt, which took you out to a pirate ship moored in a lake via various devious means (usually involving slides, rope bridges, catwalks and hauling boats across lagoons).

As ever, there were lots of places to picnic. All of Denmark seems to bring at least three hampers of food and a couple of jugs of coffee with them for lunch - hence the natty little handcarts at every attraction, which can usually be hired for a nominal fee. They're also very useful for transporting tired small children.

After lunch, M and I braved the Falken - a huge rollercoaster that she was only just tall enough to ride on. I don't think I've ever been on anything so enormous (my last rollercoaster experience was the Mousetrap at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, about 20 years ago). It was wooden (so very noisy), hideously fast, and thankfully over in less than a minute. We both agreed it was completely terrifying (there may have been quite a lot of screaming on the way round), but brilliant.

To recover, we made Orb transport us round a lake on a pedalo, while we watched the ducks cruise past. After that, it was time for the aqua park. We hadn't taken swimming cozzies with us (the weather hadn't looked that great early on in the day), so M ended up in the pool in her t-shirt and pants (and had to be dried off on my vest). There's lots of slides/fountains and a pirate ship for littlies to play in - and some rather cool looking huge slides for teens and grownups.

By this point, it was about 4pm. Ice cream time! Given that the lovely people at Visit Denmark had given us free tickets into Sommerland, we felt justified in spending the best part of £10 on some completely enormous ice creams. Ice cream seems to be very popular in Denmark - two scoops is the minimum you can have, and several chaps were tucking into cones with four. We made do with two, with maximum sprinkles. And then felt rather ill afterwards...

To finish off, we went white water rafting (hilarious, but very very wet), and M had fun driving round a Danish village on an electric lorry.


We eventually crawled home, tired but very happy!