Lathams News: DAY 24– FRIDAY 28TH DECEMBER, 2018…

We had quite a few jobs to do at home today, unpacking from our time away, washing to catch up on, parcels to pick up and a bit of grocery shopping to do…

The plan was to head to Tivoli tonight to see the Christmas lights and markets, so I didn’t want to do too much walking today as I knew we would be on our feet for hours tonight…

The plan was to meet Pete out the front of Tivoli around 4pm when he finished work. Steve, Maria, Theodore and I caught the bus in. It was quite cold so we were well rugged up. By the time we got there it was dark and already beautifully lit up…

Off to see Tivoli - A Winter Wonderland

A great night out together

The Tivoli Gardens amusement park was opened in 1843 by Danish army officer Georg Carstensen, the Oriental-themed park with its pagodas and ponds is the second oldest in the world and was initially built on the outskirts to keep citizens amused and take their mind off politics.
It wasn’t until 1994 that Christmas celebrations began to be held here. In the days before Christmas, Tivoli, Copenhagen’s biggest tourist attraction is decked out for the season and boasts of having Northern Europe’s biggest Christmas market with more than 500,000 glittering lights and baubles that transform the 20ha space into a wintery wonderland where snow, decorations, little wooden homes and the hundreds and thousands of festive lights are spread throughout the park grounds…
The gardens are also decorated with more than 70,000 Christmas baubles and more than 1000 Christmas trees completely covered in lights, and there was also a spectacular projection show on the concert hall’s iconic façade.

Shopping for traditional Danish Christmas decorations...

The centrepiece of Christmas at Tivoli is the Christmas Market, where you can wander around 60 or more stalls which sell gifts, crafts, souvenirs, and warm food and drink, including the famed Danish hot wine called gløgg which certainly helps to chase away the winter chill.
We had been to Tivoli in Summer on our previous visit and totally enjoyed the place. We had been on all the rides and attractions on that visit, and although we had tickets to ride again this time, we found that we were happy to wander around the entire park and take photographs of all the beautiful holiday lights and decorations that were really like some kind of magical North Pole Christmas paradise.
We spent a couple of hours wandering because every couple of feet we were stopping to ooh and aah at something else… Very magical indeed….

It was so cold.... we were chilled to the bone. Time to warm up

The only downside was that as the night wore on, the cold seemed to really set in, so we found a heated little summer house where we were able to shelter from the cold and we were able to enjoy a warm dinner of fish and chips for Steve and I and some pulled pork on a burger for Pete. We sat in here until we warmed up again before proceeding to finish the walk around the park…

A kiss under the mistletoe....

After previously visiting Tivoli in Summer it was always going to be on my bucket list to check it out in Winter to see the wonderland of lights and Christmas markets, and it well and truly exceeded my expectations of grandeur and in the end, it was only the cold that drove us to head for home…

Need to warm up those hands again.....

The giant whale

What a wonderful wonderful evening it has been, one I will never forget, and I feel so thankful to Maria’s cousin Mikkel for his kindness in making sure I could tick this visit off my bucket list….

This post sure has an overload of photos of the Winter Wonderland of Tivoli, but it was so magical, I just had to share the rest of these photos.