Copenhagen
To get to Copenhagen, we had to take a train from Berlin to Hamburg, then up to Copenhagen via a ferry crossing over the Baltic Sea. During this time, we were crossing the German countryside, and this view is typical: power windmills are abundant, often in rows of 10 or more. But sometimes all by themselves, too. And I recognized some of them as being from the same company as the windmill on my business card, for those of you who have one of those.
Another typical sight: cows. There is a lot of farmland in the German countryside, and cows are out grazing on grass all over the place. Cows and windmills; that's what I remember most.
The ferry was neat; the train rides right onto the ferry at Puttgarden in Schleswig-Holstein, and while you're sailing, you're able to go upstairs onto the cafe level or the observation deck, and even though it's only about 45 minutes, you can eat, drink, sit in the sun, whatever. We left Greg down below to watch our stuff, not wanting to take the chance of anyone taking our bags, and spent the ride with some American girls who were sitting near us and had the same sarcastic sense of humor that Kevin and I have in abundance. So we had a good time.
The ferry deposits you on at Rodby on the island of Lolland, and it's another couple of hours to Copenhagen. Danish countryside is much like the German and Czech countrysides, though with fewer mountains and more windmills. Pretty, but after a while it gets dull. Though there is a lot more water visible from the train in Denmark, as it is pretty much an island nation in this area.
In the time it took to get from Rodby to Copenhagen, the sky clouded up and it threatened to rain - not uncommon for this time of year, as in this part of the world summer is really over and the fall is on the verge of arriving. Our hotel was, once again, not far from our train station, so we rolled into the Comfort Inn, dropped our bags, and get ready for the evening. Naturally I decided to take a stroll first, and get some bearings. I ran into the American girls leaving their hotel, and they gave me some good advice on where to go - all of which involves going through the Radhuspladsen, which you see here.
See, the Radhuspladsen is the beginning of the Stroget, which is the main pedestrian way through the Latin Quarter and is packed with people, shops, cafes, and restaurants. It's the fun place to be, much like las Ramblas in Barcelona or the Gaslight in San Diego. We would spend the next day and a half walking up and down this roadway in all kinds of weather conditions, never once realizing that the statue on the other end of the mall is the Little Mermaid, which I had been told to see and didn't.
After another late night, in which we again ran into the American girls from the train, we all decided that we should get up early and actually SEE Copenhagen. So we went to the National Museum, saw a lot of Danish artifacts, and then decided to see some of the sights, despite the poor weather we were encountering. Just outside the museum, on the bridge that connects Vestergade to the island of Slotsholmen, I got this scene which to me is classic Copenhagen: colorful houses, canals, boats, and of course rain.
On the island of Slotsholmen is the Christiansborg Slot, which is the building in which the government is seated. As I took this shot the rain started to fall again, and it is all this rain that causes the green color on the tops of all their buildings, because copper oxidizes like that. Indeed, the most dominant color of Copenhagen is that shade of green, because they used copper to top a lot of their buildings back in the day. I think gold would have been a better choice, no?
Continuing around the Slotsholmen, the rain stopped and we were able to get more pictures. It is a nice city; here it was the middle of a weekday afternoon, and while it was busy, it wasn't loud or overbearing. We didn't have the clock pressuring us either, since everyone got out of the hotel at a reasonable hour and we had more daylight to work with owing to our more-northerly location. But the consequence of being farther north was that it was cooler, and even I needed to bring a jacket with me.
Farther along the canal we saw the Borsen, or stock exchange. The Chamber of Commerce is featured here too, and as you can see the building has a rather intricate spire that is not made of copper - but the rest of the roof is. It's a big building, and the spire is quite impressive, even from a distance. It was built in the 1620s and is still functioning today, one of Europe's longest-used commercial buildings still standing.
We eventually ended up along the Nyhavn, a canal lined with sidewalk cafes. We decided that this would be a good time to rest and have a Carlsberg. After all, we were in Denmark; not being ones to cause an international incident, we thought it best to support local industry, and what better industry to support than the brewers of probably the world's best-tasting beer? We unanimously decided that it would be in the best interests of ourselves and, as ambassadors for the United States, in the best interests of our country, to drink the Danish beer. So we did it for ALL Americans, not just ourselves. No need to thank us.
This is a famous hotel in the center of Copenhagen, and while I don't really understand what's so great about it, several guidebooks list it as one of the top five-star hotels in Europe, but comes with the requisite high prices too - so we didn't go in.
The Kongens Nytorv is a pretty big circular plaza near the Nyhavn, the Hotel d'Angleterre, and a good place to hang out and see the local scenery. Very pretty, very large. And not far from Stroget, which actually starts off on the other side of this plaza. Which is where we went next, and sat down for a while before dinner and thus ended our photo tour of Copenhagen. The next morning we got on the ferry to go to Sweden, for the main event: Pete's wedding!
Proceed to Goteborg and Pete's wedding
Back to the Europe main page
Back to the main page