Malmö to Legoland - an early morning treat

What better way to surprise our young children than to wake them up very, very early one sunny spring weekend, pile them into the car half asleep, blankets and pillows and all, and head off to Denmark and their favourite theme park - Legoland.

That's what we did, and thanks to good weather, a little pre-planning (picnic breakfasts for the road, playing cards and game-boys), and fantastic motorways between southern Sweden and Billund in Denmark, the trip to birthplace of Lego, in Billund Denmark, was a success. And one worth repeating.

We travelled from Malmö over the Oresundsbron (the Baltic Ocean bridge, opened July 2000), to Copenhagen. This journey over the bridge only takes 20 minutes by car at the most. Once we reached Copenhagen, we skirt around the city to start our trip through Denmark's island landscape and over two sprawling bridges. Even on the motorway, the scenery is pretty nice, and the views of the stunning bridges laid out ahead of you is quite breathtaking.

The entire journey to Legoland takes just under three hours, and we covered around 190 miles. We stayed on the motorway heading west, following the E45. After crossing the second bridge, we headed toward the famous city of Odense.

The birthplace, in 1805, of Hans Christian Andersen. Probably the greatest children's storyteller in the world.