Hej, Copenhagen!

Our Viking rollercoaster tour continued with the last city of the trip - Copenhagen! After leaving Sweden we went straight to Bakken, the world's oldest amusement park. Located on the north side of the city, this is an incredibly unique park that I absolutely loved. It's free to enter, and you buy wristbands to ride, which ends up creating a lively atmosphere where locals come in to eat food or listen to music, while the lines for the rides stay short. There was a U2 cover band the night we visited. They have a lot of unique rides, including a wooden coaster from 1932 and the truly insane Tornado roller coaster. I had some good fish and chips for dinner at one of the restaurants, and we also took a short walk in the adjacent park to see the original spring that the park was founded next to in 1583. Mine Train Ulven was a surprise for me - while it's just a medium-sized family ride, it was smooth and fun with a great first drop into a tunnel and really close calls with trees. In this video you can see just how close the trees are. Night rides in the dark when it started sprinkling rain were fantastic! After wrapping up a great evening, we hopped back on the bus for the short ride across town to the Tivoli Hotel.

Welcome to Bakken!

A classic coaster.

Mine Train Ulven was a hit with me.

The log flume was a bit of a soaker.

Tornado was nuts and tried to remove my head.

This ride tracked how many times you could get it to flip (by moving the "wings" on your car to catch the wind). Most people couldn't, but I got 8 flips! Far cry from the guys who got 31 and 36 flips though.

Just walk through his legs, please.

Fish and chips for dinner.

We found the spring.

Spinning ride.

At night the park was magical.

We drove by the Tuborg brewery.

My room at Tivoli Hotel.

The next day, Friday, was our day at Tivoli Gardens. This was the coolest part of the event - we had a behind the scenes tour of Rutschebanan, the oldest roller coaster in Europe, and presented the park with an "ACE Roller Coaster Landmark" plaque. Our tour included walking up the lift hill of the ride and through the maintenance areas, and then riding the coaster from the midpoint (actually boarding in the middle of the ride!) back to the station. Rutschebanan is really unique because it's one of the few roller coasters on earth that still has a brakeperson - literally an employee who sits on the train and controls a brake lever to ensure the ride doesn't go to fast, since it's not connected to the track with upstop wheels like modern coasters. We also were on the Danish news!

We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon exploring the park, which is beautiful. There's so much attention to detail and theming, and the location right in the heart of Copenhagen is cool. We had lunch in the Tivoli food hall adjacent to the park.

The landmark plaque we presented to the park.

Entering Tivoli in the morning, with our matching shirts.

One of the amazing buildings in the park.

Me with the coaster!

Our tour started by walking onto the track and into the tunnel.

Going up the lift hill.

View from the top of the coaster across the park to city hall.

Touring the highest part of the coaster.

Q&A session!

More views from the coaster.

We got to walk all over and around the track!

Heading down inside the mountain.

Maintenance area of the coaster.

Now its time to ride! See the brakeperson in the middle?

Happy riders.

Me enjoying the ride.

What a fun event!

Tivoli Gardens has great views everywhere.

Great landscaping too!

Carousel and flower.

Reflections in a puddle.

The Chinese-themed section of the park.

City Hall in the background.

Lunch time!

I had a lamb flatbread.

Cool little soldier guy as a handrail holder.

Photo op!

In the late afternoon I took a break to visit a couple of museums before coming back to the park to close out the day. Right across the street is town hall square, which I walked through to get to the Glyptotek, a museum featuring art and antiquities. It was a cool building, with a wide variety of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian artifacts. The highlights were the central hall with a mosaic floor, and the mummy room that is entered via a long sloping chamber.

The main square.

A cute lil dragon guy!

The front of the Glyptotek.

The museum indoor garden.

They had Fayoum portraits! Cool mix of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman funerary tradition.

Mummy.

Entering the main hall is spectacular.

The super impressive mosaic floor.

Babylonian lion - I love the colors.

A row of cool heads.

Just some dudes hanging out.

Special exhibit about Amarna.

My next stop was the Copenhagen museum, just a few blocks away. This small-ish museum is about the city's history, and is worth a quick stop. There was a cool exhibit on Ib Anthony, a famous artist and poster designer who created some iconic images of Copenhagen and Denmark in a style that is still copied today. Leaving the museum, I walked back to the hotel via a route along the water and the Kalvebod pedestrian bridge. After a short nap, I met up with Kyle and we walked to dinner (ramen and stirfry at Momo Wok Box) before going back to Tivoli Gardens.

Heading into Tivoli, it was absolutely packed, because it was a free summer concert night. There were throngs and throngs of mostly teenagers and 20-something women. We walked around a bit just taking in the pleasant evening atmosphere of Tivoli, but the rides all closed down in preparation for the concert that started at 10PM. We stayed and listened to a couple of songs from a distance before heading back to the hotel.

A cool little plaza outside the Copenhagen Museum.

A model of the city.

Poster idea for butter.

Copenhagen views.

Lots of people hanging out and swimming on a sunny day.

You could rent kayaks too. Fun little area.

A popular floating restaurant/bar/cafe.

The main touristy street in Copenhagen, Strøget.

Nytorv square.

Dinner on the street.

When we returned to Tivoli, it was... a little bit busy. :)

Tivoli Gardens really is beautiful!

We stuck around for a couple of songs.

Nightime magic at Tivoli.

The next day, July 1, was the last day of the coaster tour. After breakfast at the hotel, we got on the bus and set off to Sommerland Sjaelland. This was a really unique park, as many of the rides and attraction were self-operated. You would climb in, push a button, and go. It was a fun park to wander around, even on an overcast day. One of the most unique rides was a bicycle operated coaster. One person would climb in, and someone else hopped on an exercise bike to drive the lift hill. The park also had an app that let you spend points to make things happen around the park - such as triggering water cannons. 

Entrance plaza.

The bike-powered coaster!

Can I get one for my backyard?

A self-operated sitting zipline.

Even this kiddie truck ride was self-operated.

The Old West USA section.

Another park with canoes on the lake.

Memphis to the right, Texas to the left, Alabama straight ahead.

A horse ride. This was also self-operated. Get in and pull the cord to go!

This is my goat friend Mortimer.

Old west pizza buffet for lunch.

The boat ride was surprisingly large, with a lot of theming.

Like other Danish parks, they also had a big walk through obstacle course type attraction.

Just a cactus with a sombrero.

Beautiful landscaping near the entrance.

In the early afternoon we left for the bus ride to BonBon Land. This park has absolutely bizarre theming. A number of wacky cartoon characters are represented throughout the park, including a farting dog, a buxom cow, pig police officers, and a drunk turtle. It was a rainy afternoon, but we had a great time exploring this weird park. The day closed out with exclusive ride time on the two coasters, and we got some great rides on the spinning coaster.

Welcome to BonBon Land!

Me in a drummer pig.

Dog fart!

Yes, those are police officer pigs on the children's car ride.

I think I'll pass, thank you.

What a bizarre theme for a swing ride.

Another USA section.

The elaborate boat ride.

This is the dog fart coaster. Yes, that's actually what it's called, and it has farting sound effects.

The lift on the flume stopped and these people were evacuated.

Ant piss candy? Why not.

Reminds me of home!

Overview of the park.

Viki and Kyle on a albatross ride.

When the park closed, we all piled back onto the bus and went back to the Tivoli hotel. We had some farewell drinks as the ACE tour officially came to and end. About half the participants would ride the bus back to Amsterdam the next morning, but I stuck around Copenhagen for a few more days of touring.

Viking Tour Part Two

Our Viking Coaster Tour continued with the fourth park of the trip, Farup Sommerland. This was another fantastic park, with great natural scenery. It also happened to have what ended up being my favorite coaster of the trip, Fønix. Our day started with a behind the scenes tour of the coaster, where we were able to visit the maintenance room and talk with the head mechanic before riding. The rest of the park had a lot of attractions, including things like canoes and kayaks that were common across many of the parks on this trip. One of the highlights was an extremely long obstacle course that wound through trees and over water. It took more than half an hour to complete. One part had a bridge over a small canal, but also a monkey bar option. We saw a very unfortunately teenager who made it most of the way across on the monkey bars before falling into the waist-deep water! The day ended with more exclusive ride time on Orkanen, a very comfortable family suspended coaster.

Welcome to Farup!

Touring the maintenance bay.

Me with some blueprints.

Walking around the track.

Just holding a coaster wheel!

Fonix is a beautiful ride.

Twisting out of the stall loop.

The adorable kiddie coaster!

Gliding over the water on Orkanen.

Self-serve canoes are common in many Scandinavian amusement parks.

The obstacle course.

It went through a pirate ship at one part!

You get a diploma for completing the obstacle course.

Log flume time!

Orkanen has an underwater tunnel on the first drop.

End of the day group picture.

We had one more adventure that day - the ferry to Sweden! Our bus drove to the port city of Frederikshavn, where our bus accidentally backed up into a car (oops, just a slight bump!) before we boarded the ferry. It was a pleasant 3.5 hour ride across the Skagerrak, with sunlight still visible by the time we arrived in Gothenburg after midnight. Luckily it was a short ride to our hotel, the Grand Curiosa. This is a spectacular new hotel right next to Liseberg park. Each floor has a different theme, mine was mythical monsters.

Getting ready to board the ferry.

Sunset from the ferry.

The sunlight lasted well after midnight.

Arriving at the hotel late at night.

The rooms are very nice!

The massive art piece in the central atrium. Each part reflects the theming of the floor.

After breakfast in the hotel (in the extremely large breakfast room, complete with carrousel), we met as a group for our morning tour of Liseberg. We got to walk beneath the Balder wooden roller coaster and sign our names on the wood, before some exclusive ride time. During one of our rides they had to manually reset, meaning multiple employees came out to our train on the brake run to pull it forward into the station. Haven't had that happen before!

Liseberg is a fantastic park. It looks great and has great rides. The urban location on a hillside adds a special charm, and many of the rides (including Helix, Lisebergbanan, and the log flume) utilize the terrain. We had a fantastic day at this park, capped off with an evening ERT on Helix while we could kind of hear a Bruce Springsteen concert at the stadium a few miles away.

Yes, there's a carrousel in the lobby.

Scary things on the walls of the 5th floor of the hotel.

View of the park from the hotel. It's very close!

Our walkback around Balder.

Signed our names on the wood.

Morning ERT on Balder. Excellent ride!

Liseberg is a beautiful park.

Haunted lunch location.

Overview of the park from the ferris wheel.

Closeup of Helix. Amazing how it weaves through the trees on the hillside.

A big office development next to the park. Check out the pool halfway up the middle building.

Gothenburg overview from the ferris wheel.

Liseberg is a beautiful park.

Valkyria's first drop.

The park is heavily themed - this is Valkyria's station.

Dinner time.

Me and Kyle on the log flume.

Helix in the evening.

Exclusive ride time!

After a long day at Liseberg, I had a good night's sleep at the hotel. Our next day was a long one, with a long drive back to Denmark and two park visits. I'll cover just the Swedish first half of the day in this post. To break up the four hour drive to southern Sweden, we played bingo on the bus, with coaster prizes. We arrived at Tosselilla late morning. It's was probably the "least good" park of the trip - still a lot of fun, but this growing park needs time to settle in. For now it's like a sprawling filed with some fairground rides sprinkled in. It's mostly geared toward families and children. We also missed a credit here, as unfortunately Mad Mouse was closed. After a few hours in the park, we boarded the bus again and headed back to Denmark across the Øresund bridge, the longest road/rail bridge in Europe.

So many breakfast options.

Tim's what?!

Waiting to enter Tosselilla. I like their crazy duck mascot!

First missed credit of the trip.

The family coaster was unfortunately a bit rough.

Pirate ship and water park.

Crossing the bridge.

Next stop - Copenhagen!