The fairy-tale forest is the oldest part of Efteling. It is also the part that, on most visits, I keep returning to. The forest is roughly a kilometre of paths through deciduous woodland on the western edge of the park, and along those paths are twenty-eight tableaux of European fairy tales. Some are animated. Some are not. Some only run in specific seasons. The order in which the park's official map presents them is approximately the order in which you reach them if you enter from the main square; it is not the order in which they were built, and it is not the order I walk them in.
The order I walk them in, after forty-eight years of practice, is the order below.
The first half: the originals
These eight tableaux were in the park when it opened in 1952. They are, with a few restorations, still where they were placed in 1952. Walking them first feels right because their grouping creates a kind of overture for what comes after.
- Sleeping Beauty's pavilion — the small pink castle with the briars growing across it. The animated figures inside breathe once every six seconds.
- The Frog King's pond — a stone pond at the centre of a small clearing. The frog is mechanical and lifts its head every fourteen seconds.
- Hansel and Gretel's gingerbread house — the building is full-scale; the gingerbread on the walls is brushed-on plaster pigment. The witch leans out of the upstairs window.
- Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother's cottage — small, indoors. You walk past a window and see the wolf, in the bed, in the cap.
- The Wolf and the Seven Goats — the kid hidden in the clock case is a particular favourite of mine.
- The Brave Little Tailor — the tailor is mid-throw, frozen at the moment he kills seven flies in one strike.
- The Six Servants — by far the strangest tableau in the park; do not skip it.
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — the dwarfs do not move. This is intentional. They are arranged as if posing for a photograph that nobody has yet taken.
The middle: the additions
After the originals, the path moves into the additions made between 1958 and 1985. These are still by Pieck or his team, but the tales they tell are more varied. The Chinese Nightingale (1966) is the only Asian tale in the forest and sits in a small pagoda. Mother Holle (1981) is in a stone-walled well-house; the visible feature is the bedclothes she shakes out of the window every nine minutes, which produces the snow that falls in the forest behind her.
The newer half: the post-Pieck additions
The forest has gained five tableaux since 1990. They were added in the Pieck style by the design team, and they are largely indistinguishable from the originals to a casual visitor. The most recent is The Red Shoes (2017), which sits in a small barn-like building at the southern end of the forest. The animation is unusual: the shoes themselves dance, on their own, while the girl who wore them sits weeping on a chair at the side. The effect, in a quiet hour, is unnerving.
What runs only in season
Three tableaux run only during the Winter Efteling season (mid-November to early February): the Twelve Dancing Princesses (lit only after sunset), Mother Holle (intensified snow), and the Christmas Tableau (added 2019, a non-canonical scene of a snow-bound village). The rest of the forest runs year-round.
The forest at off-hours
The forest is open from park opening to park closing, which on a weekday in low season is roughly ten hours. The best walking hours are the first hour after opening and the last hour before closing. Mid-day in summer is crowded. A walk through all twenty-eight tableaux takes between forty-five minutes (brisk, no stops) and three hours (every animation watched twice, every shaded bench used). I usually take two hours. I have, on three occasions, taken the entire afternoon. There is no wrong way.