How To Find The 6 Forgotten Giants In Copenhagen, Denmark

A few days after hunting for 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower in Boom, Belgium, I found myself in Copenhagen, Denmark. That’s because the Danish capital is home to another of Thomas Dambo’s public art displays called The 6 Forgotten Giants.

The giants are spread out among six municipalities in the suburbs of Copenhagen, so I hired a rental car to help me explore them all. My original plan had been to rent a bike to find them, but when mapping out their locations I discovered it would’ve been a ~40 mile bike ride when setting out from central Copenhagen. The only time I’ve been on a bike in the last 10 years was when Shae and I did a tandem bike ride around Savannah, Georgia, so I figured 40 miles might be a little overoptimistic.

That turned out to be a good decision as even though I was driving around, I think I still walked about 10 miles over the course of the day to get to The 6 Forgotten Giants. 10 miles by foot + 40 miles by bike would’ve made for some serious leg soreness the next day!

The locations of the trolls can be found on Google Maps, but they’re all hidden away off the beaten path. I’ve therefore put together this guide for how to find The 6 Forgotten Giants in Copenhagen, Denmark.

First off, I’ve put together my own map using Google Maps that notes the location of the six trolls (the blue pins), along with what seemed to be the best places to park to access them (the orange pins). I’m not at all familiar with these municipalities though, so I’m sure locals could probably tell you a better place to park to get to each of them.

If you click the square in the top right corner of the map on your phone, it’ll open up Google Maps. You can then tap each of the pin-points and have the app give you directions to them. If you’re not seeing the map below and you use a VPN, you might need to turn off the VPN in order for it to be displayed.

You can visit the giants in any order that you like, but here’s the order in which I visited them as it seemed like the most efficient route.

1) Sleeping Louis

First up we have Sleeping Louis. I hadn’t been sure where to park, so I just had Google Maps direct me to the giant himself. The thing is, Google Maps initially had me parking a fair distance from him which didn’t provide easy access. I therefore continued a little further up the road until I saw this sign on my left:

There was a decent-sized parking lot here and, when looking at the map, it looked like there was a path leading to him. Sure enough, off to the left of the parking lot was the start of a 14 mile trail called the West Rampart which is in Rødovre.

Don’t worry though – you don’t have to walk 14 miles. Follow the path along for what’s probably a couple of hundred yards, keeping an eye out for a small path up a mound to your left. At the top of there you’ll find Sleeping Louis.

Thomas Dambo has created a video explaining the history of The 6 Forgotten Giants, so I recommend watching that to see how it all came about.

In the video, he explains that Sleeping Louis is located in an area where he’d noticed some homeless people had been sleeping. He therefore created Sleeping Louis in such a way that people could sleep inside to have some shelter.

2) Hilltop Trine

My second stop was Hilltop Trine who can be found in Hvidovre. I parked in a neighborhood which seemed to be as close as you could get by road.

From there, it was a short walk up the path to the left of the tree line you can see in the photo below.

That path leads you to a meadow where you can see a mound to the right. If you look carefully, you can see the top of Hilltop Trine’s head poking over the top of the mound.

If you’re going searching for The 6 Forgotten Giants, you’ll probably want to have on some good footwear as they’re all in locations where it can get muddy and slippery.

If you want to avoid the mud when visiting Hilltop Trine though, you can walk around the mound to the left rather than climbing up to see her.

3) Oscar Under The Bridge

With two giants down, it was time to head to one that I was looking forward to the most – Oscar Under The Bridge. I’d seen photos of him online and he looked pretty cool.

You might notice on the map I created above that I’ve pinned three parking locations for Oscar. The first is where I actually parked which was in a neighborhood. After getting to Oscar though, I saw a map of the park where he’s located and it seemed like there might be a couple of parking lots in the park itself.

After parking in the neighborhood (be careful where you park here as there were signs on a cross street advising that you couldn’t park there), I took a path off to the left through the park which seemed to be like a nature preserve.

Even though it might’ve been a slightly longer walk compared to the alternative parking options, I’m glad I took this route as it was a beautiful route to take over the water.

Another reason I loved this route is because when approaching from this direction, the first sign of Oscar is his hand gripping the bridge.

Peering over the edge, you get a good view of him. I have to admit – out of all of Thomas Dambo’s trolls that I’ve seen, I think Oscar Under The Bridge might be one of the creepiest looking.

It seemed like there might’ve been a path to get down to him on that side of the bridge, but he was looking a little hungry and so I crossed over the bridge to check him out from a distance.

I’d love to see the reactions of people who are walking through the park who have no clue there’s a troll waiting under the bridge for them.

4) Thomas On The Mountain

Next up was Thomas On The Mountain. Well, it was actually meant to be Little Tilde. These two trolls can be found fairly close to each other, so I figured I could park in one spot and then walk to both.

What I hadn’t appreciated was that Little Tilde was further away than I realized. After parking in another local neighborhood, I walked along a path through the park and came down to a jetty.

I could see Little Tilde from the jetty across the lake, but I wanted to get closer. Taking a look on Google Maps, I could see that there was a parking lot on the other side of the lake with paths seeming to lead to her.

Before heading over to see her, I figured it’d be best to stay this side of the water and find Thomas On The Mountain first. That took me through the park in the opposite direction towards some woods.

Once in the woods, keep an eye out on your right as Thomas is hidden away up a slope.

On the hill (or mountain?!) you’ll find Thomas On The Mountain.

He seemed like a very laid back individual.

So laid back in fact that he didn’t mind posing for a photo.

5) Little Tilde

Having visited Thomas, I hopped back in the car and drove around to the parking lot on the other side of the lake.

From there, I followed a path into the park and over a bridge on the right hand side.

After following the path for a short distance, there was a grassy area with a bench and a grill on the right. Google Maps indicated that Little Tilde was hiding off that way, so I walked over the grass and saw a trodden down path leading off into the woods.

After walking along that path for 100-200 yards, I reached Little Tilde.

I think she’s one of the only trolls created by Thomas Dambo that has a tail.

I was glad that I’d seen that it was possible to get much closer to her than just looking from afar from the jetty across the other side of the lake.

6) Teddy Friendly

Having found 5 of the 6 Forgotten Giants, it was time to hunt down the last one. When driving towards Teddy Friendly, Google Maps had no clue what was going on and told me to turn right down a road that simply didn’t exist – there was just a line of trees with a field on the other side.

I drove around until I could find somewhere to park which ended up being outside of a business. I’m not 100% sure you’re supposed to park there, but the section where I parked might be public parking as it didn’t seem to be in the actual parking lot of the business. Having said that, looking back at the photo below it looks like there are barriers that can be lowered, suggesting I might’ve ended up parking at the business. There were plenty of spaces though and there didn’t seem to be any signs advising that I couldn’t park there.

From there, I took a walk across the field behind where I parked until I reached some actual walking paths through the field.

Despite giving me some dodgy driving directions on the way there, Google Maps did have the location of Teddy Friendly correct. It’s therefore worth having his location up on your phone to see which direction you need to head.

The path led me towards the water which in turn led me to the final troll – Teddy Friendly.

He’s right next to a ditch, so you can walk across his arm to cross over the water.

Oscar Under The Bridge was pretty cool, but I think Teddy Friendly was my favorite of all the 6 Forgotten Giants.

Final Thoughts

The Little Mermaid is probably the most famous sculpture in Copenhagen, but I think The 6 Forgotten Giants by Thomas Dambo are significantly more interesting.

Not only are they impressive creations, but going hunting for them helps you see much more of the area surrounding Copenhagen in some beautiful nature settings.

If you like the look of these trolls, be sure to check out the following posts where we’ve seen some of Thomas Dambo’s other sculptures in the US and overseas:

• How To Find 7 Trolls & The Magical Tower At De Schorre In Boom, Belgium
• Hunting For Forest Giants In A Giant Forest At Bernheim Forest, Kentucky
• Going On A Troll Hunt At The Morton Arboretum, Lisle IL