Copenhagen - Sunday 26th June

The alarm woke us up at 7.30am sharp, ready for another big day. We attacked breakfast along with another bus load of Chinese tour parties - man they love their smoked salmon! We decided to carry our bags with us for the day as we hadn't packed that much (Hamish hadn't packed much of anything to be honest) (Again Lou distracted me packing!) as it was going to be easier logistically carrying our stuff.

Hamish had his heart set on hiring one of these Copenhagen free bikes for the day. Now Lou is not the most coordinated person on a bike and having seen the pace of other cyclists and traffic, and the fact that they drove on the other side of the road, she was not that happy about it. But because the Bandits are a team, we hired the bikes and set off.

Our first destination was the Round Tower, which was built as an astronomical observatory in 1637, and is meant to have a great view of the city. Unfortunately as we were too speedy on the bikes we were there way before opening time. So we made the call to give it a miss. Next stop was the Amalienborg Palace, which is the winter home of the Danish royal family. It consists of four identical palace façades around an octagonal courtyard and in the centre of the square is a monumental equestrian statue of Amalienborg's founder, King Frederick V.

The palace was originally built for four noble families; however, when Christiansborg Palace burnt down in 1794, the royal family bought the palaces and moved in. The palaces are now known as Christian VII's Palace, Christian VIII's Palace, Frederick VIII's Palace, and Christian IX's Palace. They were not very original with names back then.

Hamish posing with his bike

Across the road is the huge Fredericks Church, also known as the Marble Church. It was finally finished in 1894 (after being started in 1740) and has the largest church dome in Scandinavia with a span of 31m.

Our next port of call was the suburb of Christianshavn. From what Lou had read previously, it was meant to be some sort of hippy commune that didn't have to follow Danish law (because of the Christiania Law of 1989). Apparently drugs are a way of life, and they all do yoga and protest against the man. All the tourist things she had read said that cameras were not allowed and police as a rule didn't go into the area.

So we were a little apprehensive when we dropped our bikes off here (thank God). So we just decided to wander casually around and see what was up. Apart from a few more drunk people on the street we couldn't see much that was different. On our way we came across a church that had an awesome steeple on the top that looked a kids slide that go round and round. So we thought why not, so we paid to go up the bell tower, which turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip!

The church was the Church of our Saviour and was built in 1639, and it's key feature is the black and golden spire reaching a height of 90 metres and the external staircase turns four times anticlockwise around it. The spire is topped by a vase-like structure, carrying a gilded globe with a 4-meter-tall figure, carrying a banner. It has an infamous reputation for being the ugliest sculpture in Copenhagen but is intentionally made with exaggerated proportions because it is only meant to be seen from long distances.

So we started the climb, and man it was a long way. We didn’t think that they would actually let people climb up the staircase on the outside, but they did. It was a very scary experience and our calf muscles are suffering because of it. We don't think NZ health and safety would let people climb to the top. We got a great view of the city and the wind turbines, and it was much higher up than the Round Tower so we were pretty happy with that.
 

Next we were onto Christiansborg Palace, which is on its own little island, separated by canals. This is where all the main Royal buildings are as well as the Parliament and Prime Minister's offices and the Supreme Court, and they were pretty impressive to be honest. We wandered round and found these gardens which were really nice, and they even thought of the little ducklings in the pond (note to Dave, you should do this).

Then we went in the Royal Reception rooms which were awesome. They were in such good condition, quite possibly because the palace had to be rebuilt twice due to fire and the latest version was complete in 1924. The rooms were very ornate and richly decorated, and had great colour schemes which is more than I can say for a lot of other Royal things we had seen. We took a few sneaky snapshots as well. You got the feeling that the Danish people were quite proud of their Royal history and have a good amount of popularity. They also have the romantic story of the next heir – Crown Prince Frederik marrying Australian marketing consultant Mary Donaldson after he met her at the Sydney Olympics. They have had a heap of kids, and following tradition they have had to name their sons either Christian or Frederik.

Lunch was on the agenda next, after seeing the old Stock Exchange building with it's crazy spire, shaped as the tails of four dragons twined together. We were hoping to find something cheap but filling and we came across Riz Raz,a place that did a random buffet of breakfast and lunch foods. Never one to give up a buffet we tucked in. Fair to say we (read Lou) ate a lot, there was yum stuff like cheeses and salads and pasta and then crepes and fruit for dessert. We staggered out of there and wandered back to the tourist information place in search of the address of the Lego shop.

Needless to say that the Information centre was not informative - "sorry there is no lego shop". We found this odd, but we went to the main shopping area anyway to have a look. Well, we found the Lego shop, and it looked awesome, but it was closed which was a bummer. But we did find a gem of a shop dedicated to Danish design, and we picked up a great memento of our trip to Copenhagen.

And before our little legs could give way, we made our way to the world renowned Tivoli Amusement Park and gardens. This was taking amusement parks to a whole new level, it is the size of a city block and is the second oldest amusement park in the world (first opened in 1843). It has heaps of rides, and stages and restaurants and shops and pretty gardens all in the one place. We started our adventure watching an outdoor ballet pantomime performance (yes even Hamish watched) which was a great rest in the sun. We didn't pay to go on any rides but we had a good time watching it all happen.

Now we were actually exhausted so we exited on to Hans Christian Anderson Boulevard (sweet road name) and got the metro to the airport where we hung out until our late night flight. We finally made it to bed about midnight, pretty content that we had done Copenhagen.

Highlight: The view from the top of the Church, the cool clock we bought and the Royal rooms.
Lowlight: We are getting old, our legs get so sore these days.
Interesting Fact: There is a long-lived urban legend stating that the architect of the Church of our Saviour killed himself by jumping from the top of the spire, when he realised that the spiral turns the wrong way - anticlockwise - around. There is not a grain of truth in the myth though, since Thurah died in his bed seven years after the spire was completed, but it's a cool story.

Copenhagen - Saturday 25th June

We had the urge to go north, very far north, in fact as far north as we had ever been to the remarkable city of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

We really didn't know what to expect, we had heard that Denmark was pretty, a little like New Zealand and expensive, so this is all we had to go on.

We again did the mad dash from work on Friday to London Stansted to get a 6.30pm flight, (nothing like a bit of stress to cap off a manic week) and hopped on the plane. The flight time was a very easy 1 hour and 20 minutes. As we flew into Copenhagen we were greeted with the sight of hundreds of wind turbines at sea it was impressive. 

We landed in bright sunshine even though it was 10.30pm. It's interesting, the effect that sunlight has on you at the time of the night, it was so much easier to work out the transport system and find our hotel, and when we finally got to bed around 11.30pm – we couldn't sleep!

Our hotel was situated in the southern part of Copenhagen, in a weird business park kind of area. It was the cheapest one Lou could find that included breakfast, and we also found that every single Chinese tour bus group chose to stay here. Getting there was the responsibility given to Hamish, and he did a sterling job. The first part involved the metro which cost us about £4 each to go 2 stops (about 7 minutes), and the second part involved about a 25 minute bus ride which when we tried to ask for the price of a ticket were told to just get on the bus and don't worry about it. Result!

Saturday 25th June
We had a full schedule for Saturday and we knew rain was forecast for the next day so we were keen to squeeze as much in as possible. We headed down to the dining room with very low expectations, but we were greeted by the sight of the best breakfast buffet ever. There were cooked options, heaps of fruit and cereals, and also the crazy Danish touches like a whole range of unidentifiable cold fish products. We ate our full and then hopped onto the bus to town.

We got off the bus at Central Station and found our way to the Town Hall square where a walking tour was meant to depart. Unfortunately we couldn’t find it. But we forged on and found a map that did a self-guided tour of the city.

A little bit about Copenhagen, home to just over a million people, found its importance in the 17th century under the reign of Christian the 4th but it's origins lie in a little Viking chapel that was built in 1167 in the place where the Christiansborg Palace now stands. The city has had its fair share of sieges as well, most notably by the British in 1801 and 1807, commanded by Lord Nelson, which destroyed most of the city.

During World War II, Copenhagen was occupied by German troops from 9 April 1940 until 4 May 1945. The occupation was not a part of the Nazi German expansion, and in the first years German authorities wanted a kind of understanding with the Danish government. But in August 1943, when the government's collaboration with the occupation forces collapsed, several ships were scuttled in Copenhagen Harbour by the Royal Danish Navy to prevent their use by the Germans.

They love their roses in Denmark

...and they build their houses really small and steep for all the snow.

The weather wasn't being too kind, it was chilly and there was a really strong wind. Hamish decided that he wouldn't bring any sweatshirts with him on this trip, even though Lou had told him the forecast about 17 times previously…(for the record Lou distracted me while packing). We wandered our way through the central part of town and found the Kings Gardens the Rosenborg Palace. This is the oldest and most visited park in Copenhagen, and it had a gorgeous rose garden and a sweet little gazebo, - here are some ideas for you Dave!

Rosenburg palace in the background

Looking up in the gazebo

Kings Gardens

The Rosenborg palace itself was built in 1606 as a summer palace for the Royals, it is built in Dutch Renaissance style and is home to the Danish Crown jewels. We didn't go in, but had a good nosey at the guards outside.

In the Copenhagen Cathedral

Next was Kastellet which is one of the best preserved fortifications in Europe. Kastellet is a earthwork citadel in the shape of a pentagram. It still used as a Military base but most areas are open to the public.

Kastellet - Got to have a old school windmill

We kept moving and found the cruise ship terminals, cruise ships still blow me away with how massive they are, unfortunately along with the all the cruise ships means that all the passengers flock to the Little Mermaid statue which is just down the marina. This wee gem was inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale (as Hamish found out, Disney did not actually create the stories behind the cartoons it produced….) and the statue was a gift from Carl Jacobsen (the guy that owned and ran the Carlsberg brewery) in 1909. It is really small, and the amount of people crowding around it, is a little silly.

The Little Mermaid and a thousand other people

From there Hamish decided that the walking tour was best if taken into his own hands, and we meandered along the coast line, passing the Operahouse and the Play House, and Ameliehaven (garden with a nice fountain) and the suburb of Nyhaven, which reminded us a lot of the America's Cup village in Auckland. They even had some amazing super yachts parked up outside.

Unfortunately the prices were also similar to America's Cup village and with our stomachs starting to growl, we abandoned the walking tour completely in order to find food. Firstly, there were a distinct lack of English menus, secondly Danish is a really tricky language so even my 4th form French which got us through France and Germany failed. So we ended up paying for a crazily overpriced roll in a shopping mall. But it did the trick and we were soon on our way, but not before spying a hot dog van, which is pretty much the staple food in Copenhagen. There were about 6 different kinds of way you could have your hot dog, but we stuck to the plain and simple. Tasty.

We were pretty tired and sick of the gusting wind at this stage so we opted for the Carlsberg brewery, where we would be inside and drinking beer! Our epic challenge was how to get there. The metro system is not that amazing, and we didn't know enough about the buses but we persevered. We caught the train in the right direction only for it to stop at the stop before and everyone got off, so then we got on another train and found we went the wrong way, so then we got off at our original stop and then tried again. We got there in the end…a few stern words may have been said on both sides….

According to the map, it should have been relatively easy to find. It wasn't. From the train station, we saw glimpses of Carlsberg signs which we dutifully followed, which led us on this huge treasure hunt round old office buildings, and a random square with all these modern art sculptures.

Hamish playing on the exhibition

Eventually we got there, first stop was the bar. We got 2 free half pints included in the ticket price so we sampled the normal Carlsberg and the darker Carlsberg, and had a rest (it had been a long day!). Then we continued on the tour, seeing all the old heritage Carlsberg stuff, including the Guinness World Record for the largest beer bottle collection (something like 20,000 bottles). We also went into the stables where the horses who pull the carts with all the beer kegs on it, lived. They were massive horses and one was called Louise J We were only just starting to discover how important that name would be in Copenhagen….

Do like the vikings do

Look at the horses name

YUM

We finished in the courtyard, sampling the Tuborg and the Dark Tuborg. We were pretty sleepy and hungry again so we found our way back to the Central Station (I would just like to add that we traveled on the metro without paying and it was all Hamish's idea) (I would like to add it was 2 stops and we didn't get caught). We were still hurting from our over priced lunch so we decided the safest option would be to have one of the fast food options in the station, so we had a noodle type box thing, and bought some treats from 7-11 and headed back to our hotel, where we collapsed and watched a movie, had a hot shower and went to sleep.

Highlights: The Kings Garden, the Carlsberg brewery, the hotel breakfast and the hot bath!
Lowlights: The weather was not conducive to pleasant walking around conditions, and the muck up with the metro cost us about an hour. 
Interesting Fact #1: Copenhagen is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager.
Interesting Fact #2: Some of the Carlsberg's original logos include an elephant and the 
swastika. Use of the latter was discontinued in the 1930s because of obvious reasons.

The Danish elephant

Interesting Fact #3: Planking is an internet craze which the Bandits decided to see what all the fuss was about. Check out Hamish's first ever plank

Very good core strength displayed by Hamish!

Isle of Wight - June

Its "summer" so we joined in the great British tradition of attending a music festival. We had our sights set on Glastonbury, but it was not to be as we missed out on tickets. The next best option was the Isle of Wight festival held on (you guessed it) the Isle of Wight. 

This little island is off the coast of Southampton is home to about 125,000 people, and interestingly also home to poet Alfred Lord Tennyson and Queen Victoria, who built her much-loved summer residence and final home Osborne House at East Cowes.

But history was not why we packed a diverse range of clothing (bikinis and ski jackets), sleeping bags and a tent into our packs and headed off early Friday morning to get the coach to Southampton. We were there for the music man! The Isle of Wight festival started in 1968 back then it was the largest rock music event ever held. Interestingly they didn't have portaloos...I hope they had wep wipes back then. Back in the day the acts performing were the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan - even some of our older reads would know who we are talking about. For one reason or another the festival died out but was resurrected in 2002, so 2011 was the 10 year anniversary.

We recruited into the Bandits Kelley, Robyn and Dani and headed off to Southampton to catch a ferry to IOW. All week the weather had been rubbish and the forecast said that was going to carry on. We were not deterred and boarded the ferry along with thousands of others in the festival spirit.

Lou the oxymoron - rocking a hippie peace sign but at the same time barring all her teeth!

The expanded Bandits waiting for the ferry

Arriving into East Cowes the town is actually quite pretty and we thought we might go again to actually explore the Island. We hopped on the free bus to the festival site. Even though we arrived on Friday lunch time we struggled to find a campsite and ended up about a 40 min walk from the main stage and right next to a power pole. Oh well it was a spot. We (Hamish) erected our tents and got into summer clothes as the sun came out and enjoyed some drinks in the sun.

Typically the rain came along not long after but we were too excited to care. We wrapped up and put our gumboots on and walked to the main stage. The set up was so so so cool. There are sooooo many people and so many different stalls selling random things, and amusement park rides, and food stalls selling every different type of food you could imagine.

Kaiser Chiefs and Kings of Leon were the main acts of Friday night, very cool sounds and very chilled out crowd. We danced the night away and had great time.

The rain starts and the party begins

After a long walk back, we collapsed into our tents. All 4 girls did not sleep a wink as it was reportedly minus 4 degrees, however Hamish slept like a baby. Stupid boys and their internal heating system.

Saturday was beautiful, sunny and warm. We chilled out on our picnic blanket and reflected on a fun night. Lunch rolled around and we decided to make the trek into the main area to get some food. 

On the way, Hamish was stopped by a cameraman and asked him if he wanted to be filmed, I wandered over and the guy asked us if we would mind someone filming us walking around for a Vodafone ad! Of course we said yes. So we had to act casual, which is tough, and walk around for about 5 minutes, while this crew were following and filming us! It was a laugh. We then had to sign a non disclosure agreement and then the guy casually mentioned that if they use the footage with us in it then we would get up to £400 each! Result!

Hamish's dream - 4 screaming girls...

Made us feel very sick

So we celebrated with a lunch of salad (yes even on the Isle of Wight we tried to be healthy) and headed back to our tent for a few (cheaper) drinks and music trivia games in the sun.
Saturday night's line up was the epic Foo Fighters, preceded by Pulp who were actually quite good. Foo Fighters were amazing, it felt like they were on the stage for 30 seconds but it was a full set. Again the crowd was in such a good mood and the night was capped off with fireworks.

Dave Grohl

The second night's sleep was much better, once I realised that you had to put all your clothes on and then your sleeping bag. But alas we awoke to rain. Thinking it would be a passing shower, Hamish and I got up and dressed and headed to the Kelloggs tent where we got a bowl of cereal, a coffee, a piece of fruit and a muesli bar for 5 quid! Loved the marketing at the festival, so much random cool stuff.

We went back to our site to find the rest of the girls still in their tent refusing to leave until it stopped raining. Their tent had a bit of a blow out and was soaked through, so Hamish being the nice guy spent about an hour trying to fix it in the howling gales and rain, while the girls sat inside eating lollies. 

Lunch rolled around and it did not look like clearing up so we made the call. We decided to pack up and go home early. It was not an easy decision to make, but it was wet and cold and we had lost that festival feeling. So we did a quick phone call to change our bus tickets and packed up in record time. There were so many other people that were packing up so we felt a bit better about ourselves (about 20,000 apparently). We managed to get on a ferry really quickly and back to Southampton by around 2pm. Trouble was our bus wasn't until 8pm….so we found ourselves a pub and set up camp there for a fair few hours. A hot roast dinner and numerous cups of tea put smiles back on our faces and we played endless games of cards. A nice wee afternoon actually! 

Raincoats were a lost cause at this point...

We wearily boarded the coach and journeyed back to London. It's amazing how being wet and cold takes it out of you! Luckily we had organised a day off on the Monday so we had a day to recover and do a thousand loads of washing.

We had such a good time, and would definitely go to another festival again. Even the rain couldn't dampen that feeling.

Highlight: The music, the set up, good friends. It was all good!
Lowlight: The weather, and both of us getting sick and we still couldn't shake it 2 weeks later!
Interesting Fact #1: It's possible to have a diet of lollies, chips and vodka for 3 days and still lose weight...:)
Interesting Fact #2: There was about 90,000 people at the festival. That would make it NZ's 8th largest city after 7th placed Dunedin.