Fighting the Fire at Legoland - it's a family thing

One of the best attractions at Legoland in Denmark, is the new Falck Fire Brigade game. The whole family works as a team to drive their own scaled-down version of a fire engine, from the fire station to the burning house. It's takes two to pump the handle to force the fire engine to drive forward, and this is best left to mom and dad.

While one of your children drive, the other gets ready to hop off the other end and start pumping the water spray. Someone has to aim the hose and it's the first family to successfully put out the 'flames' through the windows of your house, then drive their fire engine back to the station, who wins.

It's an action-packed 7 or 8 minutes and you will be exhausted by the end of it. But believe me, the kids will have you queueing again for a second turn. Especially if the neighbours beat you.

From Hans Christian Andersen to Legoland in a day

It's well worth stopping in Odense on the journey across Denmark. Especially if your children are familiar with Hans Christian Andersen's stories (which they should be). The author's childhood home is now a museum, and many of his belongings and literature works are here.

Home to around 190,00 people and Denmark's third largest city, Odense is a good stop-off for morning coffee. But be sure to hit the road again soon as possible though as Legoland beckons and after all, this is the purpose of this particular trip.

Legoland is everything you'd expect from a theme park. Accommodation and parking is close by and easy. You queue for a ticket (unless you purchase it in your hotel reception), but not for too long. And from the moment you step inside you can pretty much be sure of spending the next 8 hours on your feet.

There are cool rollercoasters, interactive games, rides though the jungle, the desert and a safari, and miniature lego cities from around the world. There are plastic macs for sale if it rains, plenty of toilet facilities, and fast food places to keep you dry, at least for a while. We can recommend the Knights Barbeque - sat inside a rustic tavern straight out of the middle ages, your own young knights will love this eatery.

Of course there are the shops to tempt you. No child will go home empty handed when you have finished checking out the lego store here. Simply grab a basket, and you can pick up your own lego pieces from mix and match buckets. Find all those pieces you've been missing from your lego sets at home! And come home with with a big bag of goodies for a bargain price. We also found the bionicle card games much cheaper here than anywhere else.

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.