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We first heard about Thomas Dambo’s wooden giants through the mother of a friend. The first report was that about six of these wooden giants had been made in the Copenhagen area.
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Thomas Dambo’s wooden giants
To be honest, I had never heard of these wooden giants before our visit to Copenhagen, so we went looking for more information. Soon we stumbled across a map showing the location of all six wooden giants. Our first wooden giant was Runde Rie. It sits idyllically by a small lake.
Stats of the trip to Denmark & Sweden
To get there, however, we had to wade through half a lake (well, exaggeration is a skill, Simone) as the path had been submerged by an excess of water over the past few weeks. So shoes off and off we went. I’m always afraid I’ll lose my balance halfway and fall into the water. That’s not such a problem now, but the camera and phone don’t like it so much! But it went well.
Runde Rie
All Thomas Dambo’s wooden giants have a name, of course. This one is called Runde Rie. Thomas Dambo was commissioned to build six giants around Copenhagen in 2016. He wanted to make it a scavenger hunt and hide the six figures in beautiful places in nature. Finding the wooden giants is not as easy as you might think. Sometimes it was quite a search!
Treasure map
To find the Wooden Giants, you need a treasure map. And if you think you will be able to manage all six and be done with it? Well, you’re wrong, because there are now more than 100 trolls made all over the world. So if you want to find them all, good luck. We often couldn’t find more than 2 in a day, even though they were relatively close together. But finding the exact location was sometimes easy, as in the case of Runde rie, and sometimes very difficult, as in the case of Glade Anders.
Hidden among the mosquitos
So this hip guy was hiding somewhere in the middle of the forest. Surrounded by about 1000 mosquitoes. So yes, we eventually found him, but it took some searching! But 30 mosquito bites later, at least we could cross this one of our list.
Lille Tilde
My favorite is still Lille Tilde, who looks around the corner of the tree. And it wasn’t too difficult to find. Another bonus point. Some of the wooden giants were really miles away from the nearest car park. But it soon become a matter of ‘how far can you hike in on one day’?
Recycling artist
Thomas Dambo describes himself as a recycling artist and activist. He uses waste materials to create his wooden giants. He gives (waste) materials a second life and turns them into beautiful works of art. It is fun to follow him on Instagram, where he now has a whole team of people working on the most beautiful pieces of art. In the end we only saw a few. Partly because I enjoyed ‘hunting’ them, but also because I wanted to see something else of Denmark in the end!
But are you near Copenhagen and want to get out and about or are you looking for an excuse to hike around the area? Then you should definitely go in search of Thomas Dambo’s wooden giants!
Summary:
Trollmap – Find the location of all wooden giants worldwide
Read more about Thomas Dambo
Instagram account of Thomas
Of course we also had lots of kanelbullar while in Denmark. And all that hiking definitely helped in getting rid of the excess calories! Also check out the Swedish meatballs we ate next!
