Outerwear in the Efteling

In my previous post I mentioned how I was going to the Efteling, a fairytale park in the Netherlands. Since a couple of you seemed really interested and asked for pictures, I decided to make a post about it and kill two birds with one stone: Sophistique Noir's theme this month happens to be outerwear, and since I wore my favourite winter coat to the Efteling, I can show it off while I tell you something about my favourite amusement park.

The Efteling actually already exists for 60 years. I had no idea that it was that old, but we found out on the spot; there were all kinds of special events for the park's 60th birthday. The park consists of two big parts, namely the Fairytale Forest and a part with rides, roller coasters, carousels and other attractions. My favourite part has always been the Fairytale Forest. As the name suggests, it's a forest with all kinds of depictions of fairytales in it. There's tiny houses with beautiful (often mechanical) dolls in them. Most of them move in one way or another, and many also speak. Sometimes an audio recording narrates the fairytale.
Anyway, have some pictures of the Fairytale Forest, that's probably more interesting than reading about it. I don't have any pictures of the attractions, but those are not quite as special anyway.


The guy on the left is Langnek (or Longneck in English). According to the fairytale, he was the only one of his group of friends that survived a big battle. He now guards the Efteling and warns everyone in case of a threat. 
The tree is a pretty new addition to the Fairytale Forest and he was a very pleasant surprise to me. He tells stories to the children (and mushrooms) surrounding him and looks very real doing that.

 

This freaked me out. It's part of Hansel and Gretel's gingerbread house. There's a tiny pool of red... liquid in the garden and gingerbread men seem to be drowning in it. Not creepy at all, right?

 

Look, it's a fakir! And he's flying! On his magical carpet! When he started playing his flute, the tulips started to grow. And yes, those are Christmas trees in the background. Most of the park was decorated with fake snow and some of the fairytale characters had gotten earmuffs and other wintery accessories.

After we had seen the entire the Fairytale Forest, we went to the village of the Laven. Those are hobbit-like creatures that, according to the fairytale, once lived on the North Pole but then moved to the Efteling because it had become too dangerous up there. The village itself looked very cosy, I'd almost wish I could live there myself. Here's a picture of me staring at a map of the park with part of the Laven village in the background.
And a first glimpse of my outerwear, of course.


It was also in the Laven village that I found this poster:

 

It translates to "People eat meat. Laven never do."I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm actually a pescetarian, so this made me very happy. Obviously I needed a picture.
 

 

These pictures are also from the Fairytale Forest. Rumpelstiltskin, one of my favourite fairytales ever. As you can see, most of the texts in the Forest are in four different languages, so it's not really a problem if you don't speak Dutch. The narrations are exclusively in Dutch, though. 
In the second picture you can actually see my outfit.. Fun fact: that umbrella died minutes after we entered the park but we kept dragging it around for the rest of the day because it reminded us of Rumpelstiltskin from the Once Upon a Time series. We were also afraid that it might rain, which it did, eventually.

Coat: Camden Market
Slytherin scarf: Ebay
Trousers: H&M
Creepers: Underground
Bag: Living Dead Souls
Hat: H&M

I'll leave you with this picture of Joshua attacking a big, scary dragon with our broken umbrella. And yes, he won, and it was glorious.




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