I wanted to do a boat tour right away. It was a lovely sunny day, but the wind had a bite to it. I was barely warm enough on the street, and knew I'd freeze on on open-top boat. So I first backtracked to a pedestrian shopping street and bought a cotton pashmina. Then, I went back and got on the boat. Well, it was the highlight of the weekend! Beautiful sights, great weather, an interesting tour guide. And to top it off, a cute 3- or 4-year old girl, sitting behind me with her parents, was full of hilarious comments.
I got off the boat and started walking. I walked up and down the harbour area, then had lunch inside the Magasin du Nord. Then, I walked down that pedestrian street to City Hall. Once there, I discovered 2 things: 1- Gay Pride day was that day, and the plaza was taken over by festival goers. 2- My microwave-injured foot was far from healed. I had ditched my last crutch only a few days earlier, but by mid-afternoon my toe was screaming. So I ended up going to my hotel right then, and having a 3-hour rest. I went back out around 5PM to go to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum. Nice collection and fringe benefit: a view of city hall from the rooftop. Then, I walked through the Tivoli, an old amusement park. In fact, it is said that visiting this place was Walt Disney's inspiration for his own theme parks. But my toe was objecting strongly, so I retreated to my hotel and spent a nice evening reading a book and snacking.
On Sunday morning, I wisely got on one of those hop-on, hop-off buses. I toured about half the city, getting off only occasionally, for example to see Rosenborg castle and the Little Mermaid statue. I had a fantastic lunch at the Havfruen (Mermaids) restaurant in Nyhavn, with fresh mussels (the best I have ever had), a beautiful setting, good buskers, and nice people to chat with at the next table. Then I wandered a bit, but stopped very soon to sit and listen to another set of buskers, an excellent jazz duo. They were very popular and I stayed for about 15 minutes.
But my toe was annoyed again and I was very tired from limping so much, so I went to the airport very very early. But this also turned out fine: I found a kind of quiet area, with nice padded lounge chairs, a view of the tarmac, and best of all, door to keep out children, food and noise. I happily spent a few hours there, again snacking and reading my book before catching my flight home.
I fell in love with Copenhagen. It is a charming little city, with a cheerful atmosphere and happy, helpful people. Other than the 9 months of winter, I would happily move there. :-)
Peculiar things I found along the way:
Have seen variations of this in several cities around the world: large statues of an animal scattered around town, each painted differently. Here are my 2 favourites:
The face!
It just looks so happy!
Tried for 5 minutes to get a shot of just the statue of Hans Christian Andersen without tourists.
This was the best I got.
Had a little toy army, did you? I bet it wasn't jewel-encrusted solid gold like this one!
They had a thing for viking / trolls. This one was about 4 feet tall. Lifesize?
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