Bed & brick fest
Denmark’s new Lego House is put to the test by our authority on toys, George, 7
I’m quite a Lego expert,’’ explained my seven year old son to the smartly unformed guide. As we were standing in the centre of Lego’s newest attraction in the middle of its home town of Billund in Denmark, this was a bold statement for George to make.
I’ve never known where his confidence in his strong opinions comes from, but I’m sure his mum, Stella, has her suspicions.
We’d made the short flight that morning and headed straight for the newly opened Lego House.
It’s a brilliantly designed building and constructed to suggest it’s made out of Lego bricks, possibly by a hornedhelmeted Scandinavian giant who has spent millennia playing with Lego while watching TV’S Grand Designs on repeat.
A gloriously airy interior is chock full of brilliant interactive games and toys and has knee-deep troughs of Lego to play with. There were continual excited gasps of astonishment as we wandered around, sometimes from George, mostly from me.
You can build a Lego fish and see it swim in a digital fish tank, create animations, make and race cars or just Lego freestyle for hours and hours. And we did.
RELAX
Extraordinarily friendly and helpful staff encourage you to play, build and experiment to your heart’s content. Plus the exterior of the building is dotted with climbing frames and swings.
Soon it was time to check in to our room in Hotel Legoland, next door to the Legoland theme park.
Our family room was decorated floor to ceiling in characters from the animated Ninjago TV show, while boxes of Lego were available to use while the adults readied themselves for dinner.
Kidzones piled with Lego litter the hotel, allowing for adults to relax in the bar knowing the children are entertaining themselves in safety a few yards away.
After breakfast the next morning we took the short walk to the theme park. Half-term in the UK means every theme park has hour-long queues for each ride.
With the Danish kids safely in school there wasn’t a queue in sight, so George had repeated goes on his favourite ride, the brand new Flying Eagle rollercoaster, opened to celebrate Legoland’s 50th birthday this year.
Plus there are pirate ships, log flumes, and endless restaurants to enjoy.
We checked out in the morning and drove east in our hire car to the seaside town of Kolding. Danish countryside is clean, flat and beautiful, making driving a pleasure, even if like me, you’ve never driven on the wrong side of the road before.
After the manic fun of Legoland, it was a pleasure to visit the green oasis of calm which is the Kolding Geographic Garden.
It’s bursting with plants and trees from around the world, and we strolled through bamboo groves and picnicked among an array of gorgeous Japanese
You can build a Lego fish and see it swim in a digital fish tank or create animations
flowers. Created by a local botanist and now celebrating its centenary, the centre has plans to redevelop with a new visitor centre. (geografiskhave.dk, adults €10, children free)
Kolding is also home to a majestic royal castle and its crown jewels.
Then we headed west to the pretty port of Esbjerg, famous for its four giant white statues of men who stare out to sea. They stand next door to the impressive Fisheries and Maritime Museum, where we watched seals being fed, before exploring the aquarium.
It houses a wonderfully interactive exhibition about North Sea oil and gas extraction which George was very attentive to when he discovered without oil there’s no plastic, and therefore no Lego. We could even try on oil-spattered heavy duty overalls. I imagined I was embracing my industrial Middlesbrough heritage whereas Stella suggested I could be auditioning for disco band the Village People. (fimus.dk, adults from €17, children free)
After lunch we visited the Tirpitz Bunker museum, centred on an enormous Second World War bunker and retooled to provide a moving account of the Nazi occupation of Denmark. It also has fascinating exhibitions about local history, with examples of artefacts made of local amber. (vardemuseerne.dk, adults from €17, children free)
We returned to Billund to stay in Lalandia, a water park adjacent to Legoland. We sat outside our stylish holiday cabin and drank wine and while watching the sun set.
We spent our last day splashing around the huge water resort full of flumes, saunas and rides, and dared Europe’s largest outdoor waterslide.
Leaving the next morning it was George who typically had the last word about our holiday.
‘‘It was better than epic,’’ he grinned, ‘‘it was legendary’’.