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A night flight from Miami aboard British Airways brought my friend John and me to Heathrow where we deboarded and waited in the massive new Terminal Five for a flight to Copenhagen. It was the beginning of a twenty-one-day land/cruise trip: one night aboard the plane, three nights in Copenhagen, a twelve day cruise of the Baltic on the Rotterdam and five nights in London.
It was not the first visit in Copenhagen for either John or myself. He had been there for a week in 2008 as the take-off point for a repositioning cruise on the Crown Princess, though I hadn’t been there in forty-two years. We stayed three nights at the Kong Frederik Hotel, very centrally located on the main drag Vester Voldgade. Bountiful full buffet breakfasts were part of the price ($458 for the three nights for each of our singles).
The hotel has a five story atrium, an enclosed courtyard, very attractive with glass roof, a nice place to sit and relax.
That first night we turned to the left on our street and across from the City Hall and Tivoli Gardens we started down the pedestrian shopping street Stroget. Right off the Stroget through a gateway, we had a fine dinner at Italiano. One afternoon we had a lunch there.
The first morning we took a bus tour of the city to get our bearings. While waiting for our bus to show up, we walked around the perimeter of Tivoli Gardens, a two by four block enclosed area in the very heart of the city. Off to the side of Tivoli is a big shiny silver ferris wheel that’s fun to ride. Next to it is the round building where, I think, around 1967, on my first trip to Copenhagen, a wonderful one-ring circus with great horsemanship, was held. It’s now long gone.
Copenhagen is a city of steeples and towers, and the sound of bells are heard every fifteen minutes from different locations.
In Denmark, a country of 5 1/2 million, with 550,000 in Copenhagen itself, you’ll see American food chains everywhere with Seven-Elevens in abundance. As we traveled around on our tour bus, we saw advertised productions of Broadway shows: Les Miz, Mama Mia, and Come Together.
In front of a museum a copy of Rodin’s “Thinker” sits. The guide asked, “What is he thinking?” and a woman familiar with the joke yelled out, “Where did I leave my clothes?”
The changing of the royal guard at the palace is a let-down, a nothing to avoid. Of course we saw the iconic life-size Little Mermaid statue. It’s been beheaded twice by vandals, but the city has kept the mold so they are able to recreate it. There is much mention of Hans Christian Andersen, one of the country’s leading writers.
After our bus tour, we walked to the end of the pedestrian street and ended up at Ny Havn (New Harbor), a touristy spot: a long stretch of sidewalk restaurants on one side of a canal. It’s a charming place to walk around on a clear day. On the other side was the former red light district, called “the naughty side.” We had a delicious fish (plaice) and chip lunch with remoulade sauce at the Christian V restaurant. One night we enjoyed a good hamburger at the Irish pub Farrely’s on Stroget. The areas near the waterways and canals seemed the most interesting.
One afternoon we visited Tivoli Gardens, the amusement park like Disneyland. It has a number of upscale restaurants, really thrilling daredevil rides for the young and brave of heart in which the human body is upended, dropped precipitously, shaken, spun, whipped, and thrown about like a rag doll.
Some spots in the park were a little the worse for wear and shabby, but most of the park is charming with a lake, beautiful plots of flowers, and bandstands, some with popular music others with semi-classical selections. Fireworks enliven the skies at night.
In Denmark you will see a bike culture. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people ride bikes. Dedicated bike lanes are abreast of sidewalks, and people on bikes go whizzing along very efficiently.
Denmark has more windmills, the new type, than any other country. Eighteen per cent of the country’s power comes from wind energy. Boats go back and forth to Sweden, but there is also a bridge. We met a Swedish waitress who commutes to work every day to and from Sweden by bus.
Our hotel was near the medieval section and the Latin Quarter, the University district, where we saw students demonstrating. One night a huge parade demonstration took place with many of the participants walking along in the parade wheeling their bikes.
The state church is Lutheran according to the Constitution. We visited the Lutheran cathedral, which was very simple, stark-looking, with no decoration or flourishes. Some of the pews were like booths with one row facing the other.
Carlsberg beer is a local institution with Tuborg beer also popular. Bars and pubs are everywhere, and you’ll see plenty of people enjoying their brewskis. Unfortunately a lot of the bars were so smoke-filled they were distinctly uncomfortable.
Many of the old buildings are in the quaint Dutch Renaissance style with the ornate gables or peaks reminiscent of architecture in the Netherlands. You’ll see ornate buildings with character, not modern looking monoliths. The old Latin Quarter has the narrow streets and cobblestones that make it fun for wandering.
To the casual, short-time visitor, Copenhagen seems like a fairy-tale city: quaint, attractive with lots of fun-loving people dedicated to having a good time amid pleasant surroundings such as castles, palaces, pubs, and an old historic medieval-looking section. It’s a pleasant looking place with thousands of bicyclers, out-doorsy looking people. It’s like large scale Disneyland with Tivoli Gardens at its core.
Of course like every city it has its seamier side: crime, druggies, the homeless, grundge, but for the casual tourist, it is a fairly good destination.
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Yep my thoughts too a Lesbian”Big Chill” – M. Perry – latin link
Calvin Lott