Out + About: Hundested Harbor Playground

A plague seems to be upon our house  – this weekend wasn’t the best.  Not one but two sick kids and not sure if it was a stomach thing or a food poisoning thing or what.  We hunkered down for the weekend for everyone to rest and get better, and gave our tot the day off from school today to recuperate, but three days indoors will have you craving the outdoors in no time at all.

Spring is a little slow in coming but it IS coming (right? RIGHT?) so we whittled away a few hours by making a list of some of the favorite playgrounds we’ve seen to start thinking about where to go back as the days warm up.  I realized that we hadn’t shared yet our outing to Hundested Harbor, and the playground there, right in the middle of the harbor, is pretty cool.Not that you only need warm days for playgrounds.  The great thing about Denmark is that you’ll find kids on them without much regard for the weather, but we do like to get out and about outside of the city, especially to the seaside towns, and we make more time for that in the summer.  Hundested is effectively at the end of the Danish Riviera and we finally made it there at the tail end of the summer (though you wouldn’t have known it by our need of sweaters and puffer vests).  It’s home to a little harbor, a small collection of artists stores and residences, a few waterside eateries (including a great little brewery restaurant) and this pretty cool playground.It’s not huge but it is pretty lovely.  And funny.  I mean, whoever built this life-sized lobster trap (eel trap?) for kids is a winner in my book.  I don’t think this kind of thing flies in the US, but it had me double over laughing.  The kids all climb in it but since they’re all moving around to keep their balance, the trap keeps rolling around like one of those old-school bingo ball baskets. So the kids are playing, and balancing, but they’re also hopefully learning a little bit about what used to be the mainstay of the former economy of the town. Bonus says the international economics degree holder.  Next up, the carved, wooden sculptures/climbing structures of other lobster-type bottom dwelling crustaceans.  No garish primary colors on this one – just structures that through their natural shape gave kids plenty of places to climb on, and natural color complements all the painted vacation rental houses behind the playground.  She fell of these lobster prawn things a lot since they were rather slippery, but when she finally made it to the top, we had a hard time prying her off of it.  I loved the little brass plaques on the structures saying who carved each one and when… Maybe I’m a bit hokey but it felt kind of nice to think that your child was playing on something that was clearly thought through and built by an actual person.Swings…sandbox…those are more standard…Ropes are also pretty standard around here…first kids learn balance just by walking on them and holding on to the higher one.  But it doesn’t take very long for them to figure out how to climb up and down them, scurrying around like little castaway rats trying to hitch a ride into the next port.  Also, given that our daughter can now basically stand on one while lifting herself up on to the other one as both ropes move was a sore reminder to myself that perhaps some sit ups are in order.  Not for her, for me.  I can only dream to have that kind of core strength one day.In the end of the day, playgrounds here have what all good playgrounds have – lots of fun and lots of places to play.  

As a parent, that’s all you can ask for – but a lovely view of the boats coming into the harbor doesn’t hurt either!