Beat the Madrid Heat Tour: Part 2-Legoland in Billund, Denmark...

First you land at the Billund Airport in your little lego 757...well, not really, but they do have an exact replica of the town airport as part of Legoland's Miniland, and it is so adorable with all the taxiing planes and cargo carts buzzing about. I will apologize up front for what I'm sure is going to a post plagued with an excessive use of the words...awesome...cool...amazing...adorable...cute... Sorry, but I'm just NOT going to be able to help myself...

In my opinion, Miniland is the highlight of the entire park. I am so amazed by how much detail has been paid to get the sites of these famous places so accurately depicted. They had miniature versions of most of the countries we would be visiting on this vacation...Denmark, of course, Sweden, and Norway, but also, Germany, Holland, Greece, India, Mt Rushmore, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Below is the famous Nyhaven Habor scene from Copenhagen... Here is the miniature version of Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. Cinderella's castle in Walt Disney World is modeled after this famous German castle... More sites from Germany...

One of the coolest parts of Miniland was the amount of objection that were mobile or interactive. The three pictures below are of a car that actually drives itself onto a ferry and moves across to the other side of the river. So brillant...
Here are some of the adorable little yellow cottages that the Swedes like to summer in...Here a little of Holland's landscape...Love the working windmills...

Since Legoland is located in Denmark, it's no surprise that they have minitures of several of their royal palaces...

Another German castle high on a hill...

Check out this lock system...now that's a phrase that rarely crosses my lips, but seriously...See that boat coming in at the top of the lock....then see the three holding tanks next to the lock? Watch as the water level starts to drop. The tanks are filling up with this water until finally, the boat is lowered down and able to move threw the lock. All of this is down automatically... Amazing!

This NASA shuttle miniature actually looks like it might really take-off...Now that really would be something...There are many rides at Legoland, but they are just rides. They are truly works of Lego art...Loved this safari ride...Besides the animals on the ground, we also saw a gorilla on up on a cliff and vultures perched on the branches of a dead tree...inspired!

There sure were a lot of water rides for a place that doesn't seem to have very many hot days...I guess the native Scandinavians are a mighty hearty lot...

Legoland's version of the tea cups...

I loved this ride with the circling sharks in the moat...the theme of this ride was Lego castle...

Just as the ride is about to go inside, we see this guy who's about to be be fed to a crocodile...he's already lost his shoe... Some scenes from inside the ride...

The ride finishes up with this guy showing under the waterfall...

Our favorite ride was this one where we got to play firefighters...

I took this one for my friend, Angela. She loves dalmatians!

This attraction pits 8 families or groups against eachother. You have to power the truck down the lane...old timey railroad style...jump out and point hoses at a window of house that is supposed to be on fire. You are responsible for all the pumping action. Once the fire is out, you have to get the truck back to the station. The first time we did it, we came in 4th. Disappointed by the poor performance, we devised a plan to maximize everyon's strengths and came in 1st! We did it a 3rd time to see if we could improve our time. We put of the fire and and had left the station before any one else had even finished fighting their fires...We even got a shout out from the attraction's emcee...Eight said, "Our family rocks!" Just slightly competitive...It was tiring and we had to visit the Ben & Jerry's truck afterwards...

Below you'll find the best deal in the whole park...You get to roast your own baguette of bread on a stick...Just like the native Danes used to in the old days...they call it Snobrod and it was only 10 Danish Kroner a pop which come to about $1.75. It was so tasty and affordable, we decided to make it our lunch...

The roasting area was in a a part of the park that was done up in a Wild West theme, complete with a Lego Mt Rushmore and Sitting Bull. Here's Eight with a pack mule...too cute...

The boys are having fun roasting their bread. It was hard keeping it out of the fire...

Twelve's impatience left parts of his baguette a little charred...

While Twelve is a lot like me, Eight has the patience of his Dad...near perfection...We said good-bye to Legoland and headed back to Copenhagen for a day of sightseeing and the start of our cruise...more to follow from this summer's Beat the Madrid Heat Tour...Hasta luego...