We stayed for 6 nights in Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark and while initially we thought it would be a very expensive city, we discovered a fantastic way to explore the city on a budget with kids.

The Copenhagen Card offers huge savings to visitors, including free entry for kids across all attractions and travel on all public transport. We were thrilled to be able to see much more of the sights than we were anticipating. Copenhagen has a huge range of museums, galleries and fun family friendly attractions - we purchased the 96 hours card (4 days) and we still didn’t see everything that was available.

NYHAVN

These photos were taken at Nyhavn. This iconic location was once a commercial port where sailors frequented the pubs that once filled the colour buildings. It was also home to Hans Christian Anderson, the Danish fairytale writer. It’s now filled with restaurants and cafes and looks especially beautiful with the Christmas lights and stalls. It’s essentially free to wander the cobblestones streets and take the iconic photos. You can take a boat cruise from here too. One street back is the MACA Museum - The Museum of Contemporary Art - where we visited the current Banksy & The Early Years of Street Art Exhibition. (covered by the Copenhagen Card)

THE TIVOLI GARDENS

Another iconic location in Copenhagen is the Tivoli Gardens, an amusement park right in the centre of the city. It’s actually the world’s second oldest amusement park and it was all decked out with Christmas lights and Christmas stalls, although I’m sure it’s magical at anytime of the year. I was surprised by how well designed and beautiful the rides were, some were extreme thrill rides that you’d see in the theme parks on the Gold Coast in Australia. While the Copenhagen Card covered our entry into the park, it didn’t cover the cost of the rides which are all priced individually - although you can by an unlimited ride package. That was fine for as the girls aren’t into scary rides all that much, so they were happy to go on just one small ride called The Little Dragon.

We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon at the Tivoli Garden but you could easily dedicate a whole day here if you had the budget for the rides.

EXPERIMENTARIUM

This place was amazing! It is similar to the Glasgow Centre Science in Scotland but there was enough of a difference in the activities and exhibits to make it really exciting for the girls. Hallie’s favourite was the huge section that had lots of wire ramps that balls rolled through, It was a way to learn about international shipping, one sections represented Copenhagen while the other section represented Singapore and the balls represented produce that is exported around the world. Hallie also really loved the construction sections that had similar ball tracks and kids had to work together to get the balls from one area to the next, using construction like machines . Rooney loved the Tunnel of the Sense and Farley enjoyed the Virtual Reality Bug World. This place was brilliant for the girls, we easily spent the whole day here. Braino and I get involved too and do activiteis with the girls so it’s an overall a great family day out.

COPENHAGEN ZOO

The other big ticket attraction that made the Copenhagen Card such good value for money was the Copenhagen Zoo. We haven’t prioritised many Zoos in the big cities we’ve visited, mainly because Zoos can be an expensive day out and we have been to so many top quality zoos across Australia. London, Singapore, Tokyo, Dublin, Edinburgh all had zoos that we skipped but Copenhagen Zoo has some really unique animals that we have never seen before - like Polar Bears and Pandas. So we decided to add it to the itinerary

I don’t know if it was just the cold, grey, rainy weather that made me feel this way, but the Zoo kind of felt a little depressing. We were able to see a lot of the animals up close but I think this was because the enclosures were rather small. Maybe it looks different in the warmer months but I just felt like Australian zoos are much better when it comes to landscaping and large, themed enclosures. However, in saying that, zoos are always a good day out with kids, we watched the cheeky baby baboons playing for quite a while and there were the cutest lion cubs wresting in their enclosure, but it did make me feel reassured that we haven’t missed too much by not prioritising zoos elsewhere on our trip.

Two other places that the girls loved were The Tube & The Museum of Illusions.

The The Tube is a random little attraction in the Central Station. It had some ‘illusions’ but it was most just a series of sets created for fun photo opportunities. Like a ball pit and a tunnel with mirrors and snake skin pattern. (I love the photo we got of the whole family here though) The girls really loved it and asked to go again but I thought it was a little random.

The Museum of Illusions was very similar to The Camera Obscura and the World of Illusions in Edinburgh. But again, the girls love this sort of thing, it is really fascinating to see some of the optical illusions and we really enjoyed the sets that allowed you take the crazy photos like what you can see above. if you’re wondering - the ‘wall’ was actually painted on the floor with a mirror diagonally above it, the photo is taken of our reflection in the mirror, so we’re all actually just laying down on the floor.

And lastly, it’s worth mentioning that we also went to the National Museum which had an interactive kids sections. Not the most cutting edge thing we’ve been too but the girls were able to dress up in a knights helmet, sword and shield and sit on a fake horse. There was also a small replica viking boat amougt other things.

We certainly made the most of all the museums and attractions the city has to offer. Maybe it was just the fact that the weather was so cold and grey and damp and our accommodation was a little weird, but it felt like the city lacked a certain level of charm. The historic Nyhavn is obviously gorgeous and there were a lot more indoor attractions like art galleries and museums and royal family related sights that we could have seen but both Braino and I would agree that Cophenhagen didn’t quite live to to what we were expecting.