Yet again, another fantastic day in Scandinavian Europe. We woke up bright and early – heading straight to breakfast in the buffet upstairs. At 8am the ship was cleared for arrival and we set off into the city on foot. It took about 45 minutes at a leisurely pace to make it into the heart of Copenhagen. The maps that we get from the ship are (pardon my French) SHIT (as they hold no major streets and only point us tourists to shopping districts), miraculously though, most of these beautiful cities are laid out intuitively and we headed in the direction we thought we ought to head. Right by the city center was a canal boat tour. As we hadn’t done one yet – and the price was more than reasonable, we decided to see the city from the relaxing vantage point of the canal (jump on- jump off). The boat was an excellent way to relax, get our bearings, and see a good portion of the city. We saw Hans Christian Andersen’s “the little mermaid” or Den Lille Maufrue – as the Danish call her. She has been sitting by the sea since 1913.A note of interest:
Copenhagen is the largest city in Scandinavia. The Danes are famous for The Little Mermaid, Bacon, Carlsberg beer and Marauding Vikings.
Our aim for the day was to see as much as possible and that included the Tivoli Gardens. But as we walked through the city we happened to walk right by an Ice Bar! Based on the Swedish ice hotel, it is an entire bar built of ice. They even served our drinks in ice. So much fun – and it is so cold in the bar that they give you giant parkas and gloves to wear. Steve even ordered the reindeer appetizer. It was an awesome experience - although I’m not sure I’d want to spend the night in a hotel made of ice.
After the ice bar we worked our way to Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli is a famous amusement park and pleasure garden. It is said that Walt Disney got his inspiration for his theme parks from a visit to this 20 acre wonderland. It was cute, and although incomparable to the Disney franchise of today, you could see that Tivoli having existed for over 160 years would have been quite impressive. Steve and I walked around and had some beer and lunch at the pavilion. We had a delicious Tuborg lager (the beer here is so good!) and split a chicken sandwich in a curry sauce ( I love curry!)
After Tivoli we walked around a little bit and passed by a youth soccer tournament, right in the square! It was so cool. They had 1 on 1, 3 on 3, and 5 on 5 competitions in these little courts. The kids were between about 6 and 15 years old and just about all of them were far more skilled than just about anyone we’ve played soccer with in the states. It was humbling to say the least!
We walked again back towards the port, extremely exhausted from our fun filled adventures. We passed by the little mermaid once again and spent all our money at Tivoli earlier before being able to try one of the red sausages we’d heard about. One day is not nearly enough for Copenhagen, but I think we did a good job trying to get everything in. We’ll be back again, after all Steve is ¼ Danish!
Sarah's fish face at the ice bar.
Steve and Sarah... burrr!
Steve and his drink.
Tivoli Gardens
At Tivoli.
The Palace (Hamlet!)
The Little Mermaid
No comments:
Post a Comment