Baltic Cruise- Day 5: Copenhagen- May 22, 2018

The only thing that makes up for waking up early after a bad night’s sleep is seeing that you are docking at your first port of call. In this case, that would be Copenhagen, Denmark. Every time I so much as think the name of that town, I hear Danny Kaye singing, “Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen” from the film Hans Christian Andersen.

Sunrise had been at 4:14. The forecast called for 67 degrees and partly cloudy skies. As we cruised in, we saw a line of Denmark's famous wind turbines out in the water and the city, including an old fortress, ahead of us.

 At 7:30, our daughter J arrived and we went off to breakfast. I had my cold cuts and pastries, while J and my husband K had French toast with hash browns. All in all, we were filled up to tackle the town. I went to the fitness center for a quick biking to loosen the knees.

With the Rick Steves chapter on the city in hand, we got off the ship at 8:50, docked at Oceankaj, the dock the farthest from town, of course. We headed for the small visitor building down the street and I noted their pride in the Danish concept of hygge, as demonstrated in the large sign spelling it out. 

From the very helpful lady behind the desk, we found out that Rick was wrong about the busses. Number 26 did not come out this far anymore. We’d have to walk down to the bus stop by UNICEF and catch the 27 or 25 and get on a city train at the Osterport train station. She sent us outside to buy tickets at the machine and said to let her know if we needed help with it. It took credit cards and since I was using my Capital One MasterCard, it did not ask for a pin. 3 tickets cost 72 Danish kroner. These tickets would cover the entire trip into the city.

We walked down to the bus stop and a number 27 arrived at 9:17. Of course, we were not the only folks from our ship on the bus, but we didn’t happen to talk to anyone planning to go all the way to the main train station. The trip traversed an area with a mix of old and new buildings, some of which were obviously businesses. I only recall seeing one place to eat and not really anything to draw folks out there.

In just 13 minutes we were getting out at the Osterport station, which was undergoing renovation. So, the main building was closed. We managed to find a sign and figure out how to get to the tracks for the train heading inbound. The only problem was that it required climbing steps to go up and over the tracks. Up isn’t the worst; down is. There was an elevator at the other end, but I didn’t want to waste time waiting for it. That meant climbing down the steps, of course, but there was no help for it. 

 At 9:36, we were in a train zipping in to the city center. We tried to access the advertised free Wi-Fi to no avail. We reached the Centraal Station at 9:42 and found our way into the terminal. There was a charming model railroad layout under glass inside. 

 There were shops and restaurants, such as Starbucks and McDonald’s, but the restroom was the prime need. We followed the signs only to discover it cost 5 kroner. They do not give you coins, when you get foreign money in the States. However, we were able to pay for it with a credit card-the weirdest purchase I’ve ever made! My phone pinged and I saw that $0.79 had been charged to my card.

We found free Wi-Fi just outside of McDonald’s and used it to post to Facebook and check the weather. It was 64, according to the Weather Channel and sunny. After admiring the architecture of the station, we headed out to go to Rådhuspladsen to start our walking tour, as laid out by Rick Steves.

The first trick was to figure out which way to go to exit the building and then which way to turn once outside. They were lacking in signs for the latter. We managed to get it right on the first try. We paused to take photos at the closed entrance to the Tivoli. My daughters and I had gone to the Tivoli in Stockholm years ago and this seemed similar. We also saw a backpack in a store window that was very much like the one my husband was using that I'd backed on Kickstarter. My daughter says, that it has become a popular design.

The Rådhuspladsen was easy to find and we spent time doing the “Spin-Tour” Rick spelled out to see the sights around the square. The golden weather girls were easy to find in their tower. 

   

 As we walked around to the side, we saw that Great Dane dogs were in relief on the posts.Hans Christian Andersen’s statue was to the side of the city hall and now Danny Kaye was singing “I’m Hans Christian Andersen”. We chose to take his photo without climbing up on his lap. And, yes, this a picture of a manhole cover, because it was pretty cool.

 The interesting fountain of a horse fighting a dragon, I think, provided a photo op. We managed to zoom enough to take pictures of the polar bears on the roof of the town hall, which symbolize the Danish protectorate of Greenland. Bishop Absalon (c. 1128-1201), who founded the city, has an impressive statue over the door.

 Before we went inside, someone suddenly called out, “Orlando!” and came up to us. He’d noticed my husband’s UCF cap and introduced himself as Steve from Cocoa Beach, our favorite beach at home. His wife Robin was around somewhere, he told us. It turned out they were on our ship!  He headed off to find his wife and join a tour they were taking, while we headed inside.

We admired the lovely architecture and took advantage of the free WC that Rick had mentioned. We were not able to get into the main hall, but we could peer in. I got a couple of pins and my daughter bought a nice, inexpensive bag that said Copenhagen. Outside again, we took photos of the Lur Blowers sculpture, which honors the earliest warrior Danes. My husband was familiar with the instrument, of course.

 

 Not far away was the Hard Rock Café, which I’d noted on my map. While I went in to get my city guitar pin, K and J went to Boghal, a bookstore. J has a friend who collects copies of Harry Potter in foreign languages. She managed to find her a Danish one not long after I joined them. When we left, we headed down the Strøget, the pedestrian shopping street.

By 11:30, we were in a souvenir shop, scooping up postcards and other goodies. I found a charming window paper cut, that is a sort of a thing in Denmark, according to the package. Afterwards, we veered off on Rick’s recommended side-trip into the university district. 

 Thanks to reading I’d done in the chapter, we knew that a pretzel was a sign for a bakery. We saw such a sign on Sankt Peders Stræde and went to look at the window. That just made us hungry. Even though this wasn’t one he recommended, we decided that Skt. Peders Bageri looked good. J ordered a Coke and a cream pastry that was listed as a Danish on the bill. I got a Coke Zero (Hurrah!) and a chocolate pastry. My husband was hungrier and got a chicken and bacon curry sandwich and a coffee. The entire bill was 134 kroner. There were some low couches with tables, where we were able to eat. Getting there at 11:36 meant that we beat the crowd that was there by noon. The food was very good. K’s sandwich took longer than he expected, I’m afraid.

Up the street, we saw Sankt Peders Kirche, the old German merchant community’s church and snapped some photos of the exterior. 

Soon, we came to Vor Frue Kirche, the Cathedral of Our Lady. We decided not to take the time to go into this now Lutheran church, but we did photograph it, too, of course. We passed the Copenhagen University before we reached Gammeltorv, which is the old town center. 

Here we found the Fountain of Charity with the pregnant woman squirting water from her breasts and a boy urinating on the top. Oddly, that is the design for the fountain that has provided drinking water since the 1600s. I kind of understand the woman, but the boy??

There was also a cool old kiosk that was a community telephone center before people had their own. 

 After these photo ops, we found the Lego store and just had to stop to see if there was anything unusual to buy here in its home country. There wasn’t, but there were some amazing constructions including a mural of the old city, a dragon winding around, Star Wars characters and Nyhavn. The mural, in particular, was a Facebook hit, when I posted it later. I also liked seeing the Lego logo through the years.

At the Amagertorv, we stopped in the Disney store, because it was there. The Royal Copenhagen store had pretty china, but it was disappointing that none of it was made in Denmark. None! There was a lovely fountain with what are supposedly “storks” but really herons that looked great with a church soaring behind it. And, because you should always take a free restroom opportunity, when it is there, even if it means stairs, we went down to the Victorian WC, which was very well-kept and looked cool. 

 The walking tour now took us past the Christiansborg Palace with its three crowns spire on the island of Slotsholmen. It is now the Parliament building. This island was the birthplace of Copenhagen in the 1100s, because it was easy to defend. Now, there is a lot of roadwork and construction around the palace. There is a statue of Frederik VII, who was crowned less than a year before Denmark got its constitution. 

 Across the street is a Lutheran church and down the street we could see the Borsen with its cool architecture and dragon’s tail spire with three crowns, which symbolized Denmark’s aspiration to rule all of Scandinavia. Further on, on the island of Christianshavn, we could see the Church of Our Savior with its spire with an exterior staircase. I was glad that we could photograph it closer from our next area without walking that far. 

 The next area of note on the tour was the Havnegade Promenade. It offered a good view across and up the harbor. There were trampolines imbedded in the sidewalk and my daughter joyfully tried one out. We passed the end of the Inderhavnsbroen sliding bridge on our way to Nyhavn. 

I hadn’t been sure that we’d make it all the way to Nyhavn, but, after seeing the colorful view, I was glad that we did. We took selfies on the bridge at the end nearest us, but did not walk any farther into this quarter. 

Skipping other items on the tour, we headed for Amalienborg Palace, the home of the queen and the crown prince.  There is a very striking fountain between the palace square and the water, which made for some very nice photos. The flag was not flying over the queen’s mansion, so she wasn’t home. It was over her son’s, so we thought he might be in. We went into the square for better photos of the palace, statue of Frederik V and the distant Marble Church. Time precluded going into any of these. 

 We had been planning to just head for transportation back to the ship after this. We’d heard that the Little Mermaid statue wasn’t worth the effort. However, we heard a tour guide tell a group that she was just a 15-minute walk away. Well, now we had to go there, didn’t we? Plus, we wouldn’t have to explain why we skipped her, when asked the inevitable question at home, “Did you see the Little Mermaid?” So, even though I was really wearing down and my knees were furious with me, off we went.

The walk passed some nice buildings and even some souvenir shops down below street level. When we reached Kastellet Park, we were greeted by the twin sights of the Anglican church built out of flint and the Gefion Fountain. The former made a lovely photo, when shot from below a flowerbed nearby. The fountain was out and out cool. It depicted the myth of the goddess who carved Denmark out of Sweden in one night, after turning her sons into oxen. Rick Steves says, there is indeed a lake in Sweden, Vänern, that is about the same shape as the main island of Denmark, Sjæland (“Zealand” in English- so that’s where we get “New Zealand”!).

 We climbed the hill behind the fountain and could see the ramparts of the old fortress. I noticed a familiar scent and soon came upon a huge lilac bush. I haven’t seen- or smelled- one of those in ages. I could see our ship off in the near distance. It wasn’t long before we could see the crowd. The statue took a bit to pick out. At 2:17, we found ourselves standing in front of the Little Mermaid statue. It was incredibly hard to get a photo of her without some idiot right up next to her. 

 Nearby in the park, we saw a hop-on-hop-off bus labeled with our ship’s name. Unfortunately, they could not sell us a seat to ride back, since we had not boarded at the ship. I could see the Osterport train station and correctly guessed a path to get down there. (We were up in what had been the fort area at this point.) It wasn’t a bad walk, we just had to avoid traffic heading up the hill. When we reached the main street, we noticed a bus stop up the street to our right. Since the train station was in the wrong direction to head back, we went for the bus stop and it was one with our two bus number choices on it. The sun was intense and it was a very warm 15 minute wait. We were soon joined by others going our way.

When a number 27 bus arrived at 2:45, I was very grateful. J paid the 72 kroners this time, which, considering it was only a 13-minute trip, was not as good a deal as the morning. But, what can you do? We passed an interesting mix of old and new buildings.

We got off at UNICEF and walked up the street toward Terminal 1, which was closed. However, crew members were there staring at phones. So, we stopped and found what they had found- free Wi-Fi. We posted photos and took some with the ship behind us before walking up around our terminal to board the ship at 3:16.

It had been a long time since that pastry, so we went to the Lido deck for a fruit and cookie snack before going to the cabin. We noticed, as we passed the pool, that the cove was partially open and we could see the moon. 

Once in the cabin, I found out why I was dying out there- it was 77.7 degrees. That was over 10 degrees above the forecast. I appreciate the sunny weather, but I didn’t really need the heat.

We set sail before dinner and I got some nice photos of Sweden across the water before we went to the dining room at 5:22. 

There was bread on the table, as usual, but one of the best tonight was a Bavarian stick with caraway and rock salt. (I learned its name later, when I saw it on the Lido deck.) Since I didn’t get one at lunch, I had a chopped farmer’s salad to start, while J had vegetable and tortellini soup and K had shrimp and calamari chowder. Do not even ask my reaction to that one. 

 For my entrée, I chose classic Wiener schnitzel, which was huge and tasty. J had the same and k had Eggplant Cannelloni Parmesan, which he liked. 

To go with the Austrian theme, I chose Esterhazy Cake. I was glad I did, even though it was by no means my favorite dessert. But, this was an easy way to find that out. J agreed. She got the Ricotta Raspberry Tart, which we both preferred. K had the Mango Blueberry Crisp. It was quite good.

 At 6:55, we were out taking pictures of our turning wake with Sweden in the distance. For the first time all day, we were cold. The TV informed us that it was now 64.8 degrees. 

 My knees were begging me to quit, but there were places to go. We went to the 7:15 performance at the Lincoln Center Stage. Both J and I found our eyes closing, even though we really enjoyed the music. At 8:15, we hurried to the World Stage for the song and dance performance there. There are two male singers, one of whom looks like Christian Kane from The Librarians, and one female, all of whom are terrific. The dancers are so talented, too.

J and I decided to split a milk chocolate cheesecake slice on the Lido deck, being one of the desserts we’d passed on and we wanted something better than the Esterhazy. The Bavarian stick called to us, too.

It was around 9, when we were in our cabin and saw an amazing sunset. It would not be the last spectacular one on this trip. 

 

  

Then, because my husband really, really wanted to see it, we stayed up until 11:50 to see the ship pass under the second longest suspension bridge in the world. He found deck blankets in the cabinet over our sofa to help us brave the temperatures. I will admit, that it was a pretty sight to end the day.