August and into September

Jess arrived home on August 18, which was great. A week later off to Copenhagen we go....

8/24/10
Arrived in Copenhagen (Kobenhavn) which translates from Danish to English as "Merchants Harbor", got here late in the afternoon. Finding our way from the airport (via train) to our hotel was very easy. Hotel du Nord is just down the road from the Central Train Station. Less than a 5 minute walk and we were ready to check in to our room. The room was clean, large and comfortable. No wireless connection (which is why I am only just now getting around to blogging.) Unpacked, and we were out the door. 5 minutes walking and we were at Tivoli Gardens and City Hall Square. City Hall Square is in the Center of the city, we did a quick walk around there to orient ourselves for the next days plans. Took some pictures, the Bull and Dragon Fountain, the stele that marks the exact center of Copenhagen. And a "soccer" game, it was weird, there could not have been 10 feet between the 2 goals. Then we walked over to Tivoli, a wonderfully fun place to visit, said to be the oldest amusement park in Northern Europe. Tivoli was opened in 1843/44. It is said that Walt Disney visited Tivoli early in 1950 and it was the inspiration for Disneyland. It is very easy to make the correlation between Tivoli and Disneyland. It is broken into areas that represent different parts of the world. And very reminiscent of Disney in the 50's and 60's remember E tickets? You pay individually for all the amusements/rides at Tivoli, so we passed on doing any of that, we just walked around and enjoyed the people and sights. There is a hotel just inside the park that is built to look like the Taj Mahal. There is also a lagoon with a pirate ship docked that is a restaurant so of course we had to have our first dinner there. We had really lovely BBQ ribs. After dinner we continued walking through the gardens, there was an Orchestra playing Waltz Music on one of the many outdoor stages. They have a theatre in the park and the SF Ballet was in performing Swan Lake. We finished the evening in one of the cafes in the park having dessert. Jess had this amazing Belgian Waffle with powdered sugar and I had "aebleskivvers" kinda like donut holes, with jam on the side yummy! Did you know that in the rest of the world they eat waffles for dessert never for breakfast.

8/25/10 A brief history of Copenhagen
Copenhagen was founded around 1000AD on the island of Slotsholmen by Sveyn Forkbeard, son of Harald Bluetooth Forkbeard. The first Danish King to strike coins with his image on them. He ruled Denmark, Norway and England for 5 weeks before his death in 1014. In 1160 the village of Havn (Harbour) was given to Bishop Absalon by Vlademer 1 and he built the first castle on the spot. In 1416 King Erik VII moved into the 2nd Castle built in Havn and in 1443 Copenhagen was named the Capitol of Denmark.

Woke up a bit on the Cranky side on this day because no sleep the night before. Turns out our hotel is located in the former Red Light District and there are still 2clubs just down the road. One is a Maxim club and I don't know the name of the other one, but loud drunk men coming out all night and singing, thought they would move on but they did not.....Our first stop this day, city hall, first you do a self guided tour around the interior of the building, its simply a beautiful space and there are lots of areas that are open to the public. Best find, public library located inside the building, it only consisted of two rooms, but it was the original public library and looked more like a private library in a large home. Then we met our guide for a walk to the top of the clock tower. 360' up there are amazing panoramic views of the city. After we made our way to the bottom of the tower, we went into another room to see the "World Clock". It's an amazing piece of work, we were able to see all of the workings of it as well as the clock it self. Leaving City Hall we walked over to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, a museum on the same level as the British Museum, but nowhere near as large, so it is easy to view everything you want to see in one day. Lunch in the "Winter Garden" of the museum, which is a solarium basically with a cafe in it, really yummy pannini's followed by a "Sarah Bernhardt" cookie, it was amazing, almond, chocolate, pomegranate mix. Time to move on to Christiansborg Slot (Slot = Castle), the fourth castle to have been built on the site of the first castle built by Bishop Absolon in Havn. It was very cool as we were able to go under the castle and see some of the remains of the Bishops original castle as well as the second castle built on the site called Copenhagen Castle. We were able to finish by touring the reception rooms of the castle. They were amazing, unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photos in them.

8/26/10

Took the train to Helsingor (about an hour or so away from Copenhagen), Helsingor is Elsinore in English, very easy walk from the train station to the Fredericksborg Slot. This is the Castle that Shakespear used in Hamlet. The Castle was originally built as a fortress to assist with the collection of taxes from the boats entering and leaving the Baltic. Lucky for us pictures are allowed. As a castle it was definitely not superbly over done as we have come to expect, it was a little on the dark side. The most incredible thing in the castle was the Great Hall, the largest in Northern Europe. After a bite to eat that included an attack of bees, forcing us to take our food and go indoors :(, we took the train further on to Hillerod. Another castle to visit, much more like what we are used to seeing. Ornate, amazing, all the Royal portraits were great fun to see up close and then the gardens. A stunning walk through the baroque gardens ended our day. There was no train from there to Copenhagen so we took a bus from Hillerod to Farum and caught the train back to the city. Great tip if you are ever in Copenhagen, 24 hour train ticket, gets you on all the "inter city" public transportation so we never had to pay another fee once we bought the original ticket out from Copenhagen to Helsingor. Picked up hot dogs from one of the many vendors once we reached the city, their buns just have a hole drilled through them and they drop the hot dogs right into them.

8/27/10

Jessie stayed sleeping while Adrian and I went to do a bit of walk-about. Visited the "Latin quarter" so called because everybody there spoke Latin back in the day. In the Latin quarter is a church that has the "Round tower" attached to it. The tower was originally built for Frederik as an observatory, one of the oldest in Europe. The top of the tower is reached by walking up a ramp (no stairs), utilized by a king on Horseback and his queen in carriage to reach the observatory. While we were in the church they were replacing the candles for services. It is amazing to me how frequently the Danish still use candles, just gives everything a lovey look. Back to the hotel to pick up Jess for lunch and a walk down the shopping street. Longest pedestrianized shopping street in Europe. A walk along the canal and an ice cream to end the day, my flavor was Banana Split so delicious. The weather was lovely the entire trip.

8/28/10
Of course I had to jinx us the day I said that the weather had been perfect. Not that we really had bad weather, but on this day it did rain on us off and on all day and the temperature had dropped. We walked from one side of the city to the other. We went to Rosenberg Castle, toured the treasury and saw the Crown Jewels. Incredibly beautiful items. Then we walked through some of the palace itself, the rooms were amazing. Then we walked over to the Amalianborg Slots complex, a complex of 4 palaces that the current royal family live in. First we did a tour of the queens reception rooms, this is where she entertains guests. The palace is also used as a guest house. Then over to the palace that houses apartments for the queens sister and younger son when they are in town. There was a display on the life of the current queen Margarthe II in preparation for her 70th birthday coming up. By this time Jess and I were starving so we found a cafe, got a bite and then Jess informed us that she was tired and heading back to the hotel. Adrian and I walked on to the fort located near the harbor. We walked back toward Vesterboro (where our hotel is), of course, we never just go directly back. So we took the circuitous route that allowed us to stop at the Russian Orthodox Church and a stop into the marble church with its wonderful domed ceiling. The dome has frescoes showing the apostles. We finished up by walking along the Strodet (the shopping street) and stopping in at a Bakery to pick up some desserts for tasting. We should have taken pictures of the bakery but forgot. 5 different little goodies to try. Most of them involved some sort of chocolate and/or creme. They were a great way to end our stay in Copenhagen. Such a wonderful week.

9/4/10
Put Jess on the plane today to go back to London, so sad to see her go, school starts Monday though.

9/5/10
Today Adrian and I are off to the Burren just for a day of hiking and enjoying mother nature.

Hope you are able to enjoy all of the photos we have loaded.

Keep well everyone!

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