Europe Road Trip
Sept 14-28, 2018
Monday Sept. 24 Copenhagen Hop On Hop Off
The Little Mermaid and so much more!
This morning we are using the hotel laundry service for which we are very grateful. We drop off our laundry bag at the front desk and hope it will be delivered back washed and dried at the end of the afternoon. Great!
The Admiral Hotel serves a wonderful breakfast buffet every morning in its Salt Restaurant and we are amazed at all the choices. Meat and cheese platters, fresh fruit platters, granola and toppings, eggs, bacon, sausage…the breakfast buffet is always full of customers. This hotel is a favorite with bus tours.
Today it is raining and it rains all day! Our first full day in Copenhagen. It’s a good thing the hotel loans out umbrellas for its hotel guests on request. I request! This is our Hop On Hop Off City Bus Tour morning and we pick up the bright red double decker bus just a short distance from our hotel. Al and I climb to the top deck which is thankfully a covered deck. We find a seat and we are off! Copenhagen is a busy active city with many large attractions, palaces, government buildings, businesses, restaurants and shopping areas. It is a city full of history and we listen through our ear plugs. We notice the steady lines of bicycle riders following their lanes on the streets. At a traffic light all traffic and bikes stop and when the light changes everything moves forward. Al and I stay on the bus for the whole route. We hop on but we don’t hop off. We want to see the city in its entirety. Tomorrow we will walk to those places we want to revisit and where we will spend more time. This morning the bus takes us past Tivoli Gardens Amusement Park, the National Museum of Denmark, the Copenhagen Mall, Christiansharbor Square, Our Saviour’s Church, Christiansborg Palace, Thorvaldsens Museum, Nyhavn (New Harbor), Amalienborg Palace, Gefion Waterfountain, the Swedish Church, The Little Mermaid Statue in the harbor, Rosenburg Castle and Botanical Gardens.
Denmark’s best known monument is the small Little Mermaid Statue sitting on a rock in the harbor gazing wistfully at passing ships. The sculpture was inspired by the tale of The Little Mermaid written by Hans Christian Anderson. The tale is about a mermaid who falls in love with a prince.
The Gifion Statue is large and very impressive. It was built in 1908 by Anders Bungaard. The main feature of the monument is a statue of goddess Gefion, a mythical Scandinavian figure. According to the legend, the king of Sweden promised to give the goddess as much land as she could plough in the night. Gefion turned her four sons into oxen and harnessed them to a plough. By morning she had ploughed a huge chunk of Sweden! She picked it up and threw it into the sea and so formed the island of Zealand (Denmark.)
When Tivoli first opened in 1843, it had only two attractions: a carousel with horses and a roller coaster. Today it is so much more. It is one of the most famous places in Denmark and much loved by the Danes. Located in the center of Copenhagen it now includes almost one thousand trees and blooms with 400,000 flowers in the summertime. At night hundreds of colored lights light up the darkness. The main entrance was built in 1896 and nearby stands a statue of the designer of Tivoli, George Carstensen. Within Tivoli’s borders are found The Ferry Inn, just one of many restaurants, Frigate, the huge ship known as St. George’s Frigate III, a floating restaurant, Pantomime Theatre, Pagoda, a Chinese Pagoda featuring Chinese cuisine, a concert hall, amusements and the Tivoli Garden Guard which is made up of about 100 boys aged between 8 and 16 who dressed in smart uniforms march to the beat of drums. Al and I do not get to see all this as we found the main entrance closed and the park shut down.
Thorvaldsens Museum was the first art museum in Denmark. It opened in 1848. Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) lived and worked in Rome for more than 40 years. He bequeathed his works and his painting collections to Copenhagen.
Christiansborg Slot (castle) was built by Christian VI to house the royal family. It was one of the grandest palaces in Europe. It burned down in 1794 forcing the royal family to move to Amalienborg Palace. A new palace was completed in 1928. Adjoining palace buildings include the palace church, former royal coach house and royal stables.
The redbrick Radhus (City Hall) opened in 1905. Its large main hall is sometimes used for exhibitions and official events. This is an official building but it is open to visitors. Many climb the 298 steps to the top of the tower reaching the city’s highest viewpoint.
Rosenborg Slot is one of Copenhagen’s most visited attractions. It contains thousands of royal objects including paintings, trinkets, furniture and a small armoury. The underground treasury contains the crown jewels and other royal regalia. The Dutch Renaissance brick palace was erected in 1606 to serve as a summer royal residence. Today the palace is open to the public as a museum.
Al and I return to our hotel for an inside lunch out of the rain. Photo on left shows my shrimp with quail eggs, right shows Al's roast beef plus a bread and cheese platter. In the afternoon when the weather clears a bit we walk the few blocks to Nyhavn.
What is Nyhavn you ask? It is where it is all happening. It is the place to be. Nyhavn (New Harbor) is the scene of all those brightly painted townhouses lining the inner canals that you see pictured on the front cover of the tourist brochures. Today the area is filled with sidewalk cafes full of visitors who are taking in the beautiful scene. Even in the rain it is an intriguing place.
Canal tour boats come and out and a canal boat tour of Copenhagen is high on the list of “must do.” Al and I spend time walking up and down the long rows of houses enjoying the ambience of it all. After our dinner (still in Nyhaven) we return to our hotel and turn in for the night. We have no trouble this time sleeping under the burning room lights (the ones we can’t turn off!).
