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!