Podcasts Culture How to Live in Denmark Tivoli vs Bakken: How two amusement parks show the two sides of Denmark

Tivoli vs Bakken: How two amusement parks show the two sides of Denmark

Published: April 28, 2022, 1:26 p.m.

Denmark has several amusement parks, including the original Legoland, but the ones I know best are the ones in Copenhagen - Tivoli Gardens and Bakken.

Tivoli and Bakken show two different sides of the Danish character. \xa0

Tivoli is the sleek, confident, high-end image that Denmark likes to present to the world: it has exquisite flower gardens, fancy shops and restaurants, and a theater that hosts world-class performers. Bakken is more homey, more quirky, a little shabby, and a bit more hyggelig, under my own definition of hygge as \u201cunambitious enjoyment\u201d.\xa0

The differences between the two parks also illustrates the class differences in Denmark \u2013 even though Danes like to pretend there are no class differences in egalitarian Denmark.