07-03 Copenhagen Kastellet and City Hall

Out of the door at 9:15 today. It’s supposed to rain this afternoon, so we want to make the best of the morning sun. Yes, I said sun, in Copenhagen. We walked over to the Kastellet (Citadel), the star-shaped fortress, north of downtown. The grass-covered ramparts are in the shape of a star surrounded by a moat. Construction was initiated in the 1620's by King Christian IV (there's that guy again) and was finished 20 years later.

We walked around on top and it's very windy. There are cannons around the edges and they are out mowing the lawn this morning (via remote control - how cool was that?).

There are active guards patrolling around the top and we passed two sets of two on our walk around.

Windmills were dotted around the fortification in the old days to supply flour and rolled oats in case of a siege.

The buildings are used for administrative offices now.

Next we walk by the church on our way to the Little Mermaid statue. It's very crowded just like it was our first day here. After a couple of pictures, we sat down on a bench in the sun.

We walked through Amalienborg Palace courtyard and back down the Stroget (pedestrian-only street) again on our way to a store that advertised in one of the tourist brochures. It had paper cut items and Christmas items. Found nothing here, mostly cheap stuff.

Just as we were about to leave here it started pouring down rain. Fortunately, it didn't last long. We found a burger place on the Stroget; Friends & Burgers. Seating was upstairs with a view up and down the Stroget. Great tasting burger.

Karen has plans to tour City Hall and looking at her cheat sheet it begins in 15 minutes. My phone tells me it is a 6 minute walk to City Hall. Off we go.

City Hall is right across the street from Tivoli. Since there is not a tower in Tivoli, then this is the best place to get aerial pictures of Tivoli. Great location actually for pictures of Tivoli and ALL of Copenhagen.

On the tour we saw and heard of the construction of this building that was completed in 1904. Saw how the builder paid tribute to all the craftsmen who worked on the building by carving woodcarvers, glass workers, tile layers and such in the banisters going up to the second and third floors.

Also, he had heads of workers carved into the banquet hall walls.

The Fresco paintings were beautiful going up the same staircase. One is of Copenhagen at the time and one is of the country side. He told the story of a couple of painters. One did the city of Copenhagen and the harbor on the stairway wall.

He got done first, so they told him to do around the door at the top of the stairs.

When he finished that, the other guy still wasn't done, so they told the first guy to paint four scientists in the corners.

The second guy STILL wasn't done. So the first guy painted the bricks to look like bricks all around the paintings he had just finished. He had a lot more details in his paintings even though he was faster.

Council Chambers: They meet at night after their regular jobs.

The grand hall at City Hall

There was some really great craftsmanship in the wood in the library. Person's name and their birth and death year.

A tour to the top of the City Hall Tower was available within a few minutes of us finishing the City Hall tour, so we signed up. The view was worth it, because you are right in the heart of town here. And it's even better that we get to see all of Tivoli.

Tivoli in Copenhagen will always make us want to come back here to visit again.

06-27 Arriving in Copenhagen

Last night we were on the ship, the Crown Seaways, on the DFDS cruise line overnight from Oslo to Copenhagen. We had a very nice cabin on the 11th deck on the Commodore level.

We had a nice breakfast seated by the window in the Steakhouse eating area. It was very nice because there were only a few people, which made it very relaxed, with no line for the omelets and the rest of breakfast.

After finishing packing, we went to check how close we were. We are on the wrong side of the ship to see Copenhagen as we sailed in. Still too far away, so we went back and sat out on our deck in the sunshine.

We saw the big long bridge connecting Sweden to Denmark.

We arrived right on time and backed into the dock. We took pictures of landmarks of the Copenhagen skyline that we would get to know better during the 8 days we would be in town.

Because we are young, we decided to just walk the 1 ½ miles to our AirBnB apartment that we are staying at this week. It was a nice day out. We were a little concerned with the neighbor though, as we walked past this lamp post.

We arrived, walked up the 5 flights of stairs, and met the owners. They showed us around the huge apartment: living room, dining room, den, kitchen, master bedroom, guest bedroom, and bathroom with the washer/dryer in it.

They left, we unpacked a bit and by then it was time for lunch.

We had a walking tour planned for 2pm, so we sauntered through town on our way to our meeting place, the Dragon Statue across from Tivoli Gardens.

The description of our tour led us to believe that we would be learning how to photograph Copenhagen landmarks. What it ended up being was a walking tour of the landmarks and the guide taking our picture in front of the landmarks.

Amalienborg Palace

Little Mermaid

The Little Mermaid statue is VERY popular.

We made a nice 3 hour loop through the city and ended up at a spot where there were a lot of places to eat, Torvehallerne. We choose Brioche Doree and had Croque-monsieur and quiche. Delicious.

From there it was a mile walk back to our apartment after picking up groceries for the week.

06-26 Cruising on DFDS Oslo to Copenhagen

It's like the sun never sets in Norway. Oh yeah, it says it sets at 11:30 pm, but it's pretty much light 22 1/2 hours a day.

Today we have to shuffle things around in our luggage and get ready for another overnighter; this time on a ship to a new country, Denmark. We have breakfast at the hotel, check out and store our luggage. Then we are off for our last day in Norway.

We start with a stop at the bakery here, that has the best school bread we have found in Norway.

Pat bought us tickets to tour the Royal Palace last night online (since the King and his family are now at their summer place, we can now tour here). Glad he did because they were telling people the tickets were sold out for the next five days.

I'm glad we didn't miss this palace. It's smaller than a lot of European palaces, but decorated much nicer than a lot of them. Not richly decorated with wood carvings and gold, but painted in a Norwegian style. Just beautiful. And the guards are the cutest here too!

Picture (no pictures were allowed) dental molding and casings outlined and then designs and flowers and birds were added. The scenes painted in the Bird room were showcasing the beautiful areas of the Norwegian countryside.

We also saw the council room where the council members meet with the King every Friday, all year, except July and August when the king has time off.

Our guide told us how, when electricity came into the palace, they sold off all the chandeliers and now they have bought most of them back. She emphasized that this is a working palace. The King and Queen and family live and work here, have meetings, and entertain heads of state. All that happens here every day, except July and August when they do these tours.

After the tour we wandered back down Karl Johans Gate, stopping for lunch in a bakery. We each had grilled ham and cheese. This sandwich was an open face sandwich and very good. It came with a salad which we didn't eat.

We stopped at 7-11 to get two waters and a Coke to take on board with us. Picked up our luggage at the hotel and headed to the bus stop near the train station to catch bus 60 to our DFDS boat to Copenhagen.

They checked us in right away, gave us a cardboard ticket that was our room key card, then we headed for what I thought was security. He checked our passport and our tickets and told us boarding would begin at 3:15. It was about 2:45.

They started boarding right at 3:15. No announcement, just take your luggage and get on board. As we walked on the ship, I realized they never scanned our bags or had any kind of a security check.

We waited for the elevator just steps inside the ship. We needed the 11th floor. We splurged on this cabin (it's only one night) and got us a balcony on the Commodore level. We have a very nice room with a mini refrig, seating area with a couch and a chair. It's very spacious compared other cruise ship rooms we have had. I think all the windows make it seem even bigger.

Our small deck has two chairs (and room for one more or a table). Just outside our room is the Commodore Lounge with complimentary snacks and drinks. They had Coke and water bottles, OJ, chips and salsa, peanuts, fruit, and little chocolate frosted cakes with strawberries on top.

After watching sail away for an hour from our deck and our room we went to dinner at the Italian dinner place.

Karen had spaghetti with meat sauce and Pat had lasagna. It was very good, as Karen ate most of the meat sauce and about one fourth of the noodles.

After dinner we explored the ship including the kid’s area, the arcade, and the clubs. There's no big theater, but there are three good-sized show rooms.

The store was huge. It had women's clothes, men's clothing (we are not talking souvenir clothing; there were no souvenir items, except postcards) and underwear, and bras. There was an electronic section that even had DVD's, the normal perfumes and jewelry, a big cosmetics area, and food snacks, pop, lots of chocolate; a good variety of it.

The kids had their own shop of clothes and toys. They made an announcement and we were able to buy our Tivoli Gardens tickets for a good discount at the Guest Services Desk with no wait. She also helped us decide how we could get to our Copenhagen apartment from the boat dock.

Then we went to the 9:00 pm show. First it was a solo guy who was good at singing Frank Sinatra songs, but not as good at his George Michael number. He sang with canned music.

Next was a guy who played the keyboard and a lady singer. Neither were good singers, but they did fun songs.

Next we went out on the deck on our floor aft to watch the sunset at 10:30. We have a front to back rocky motion going on. No white caps, but some good sized swells. We will sleep well tonight.