Day 14 - Copenhagen

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This morning we woke to a nice day, a little cloudy with some hints of showers to our North. Breakfast was muesli in our hotel room after Wayne's heroics of yesterday to track down a couple of bowls and being an ideas man coming up with the Starbucks spoons. We slept in a bit this morning, not getting up till nearly 9am.

Off on the metro like a couple of pros that soon turned to amateur hour as we'd board what we thought was a Copenhagen Central train but turned out to be the M1. We disembarked at Norreport as we remembered it from our hop on/off tour from yesterday. It's about this point we realized yes the bus tour came through here but where on earth do we catch it from - error!

We ended up walking down to Rosenborg Castle and King's Gardens. A beautiful castle built during the reign of Christian IV in the late 1500's or early 1600's. The gardens are equally as impressive as the castle. While walking around the castle we saw a group of guards doing a drill. We assume that it is part of the trooping of the guard at Amalienborg Palace at midday that we were both eager to see. We couldn't find the hop on/off bus stop and decided to go cross country, well walk through the gardens, for about the kilometer or so to Amalienborg Palace.

As we walked up past Rosenborg Palace we saw a lady have her foot run over by a Danish Kamikaze pilot, aka cyclist. Tip for the unknowing, in Denmark do not walk anywhere near a bicycle lane if you don't look carefully when crossing and never amble across a bicycle lane like said lady tourist. Even around tourist attractions, and there are literally hundreds of them in the Danish capital, these psychopaths on two wheels do not slow down and have the feeling of being kings or queens of the road. Unlike Australia where the same applies to our lycra clad warriors, Danish cyclists are kings and queens of the road and expect everyone and everything to get out of their way including each other.

We made it to Amalienborg Castle for the trooping of the guard with about 15 minutes to spare. The grief of the earlier part of our day was well compensated. The midday spectacular, which is on every day of the year, is a must see if you ever are fortunate to be in Copenhagen. When the monarch is in residence the troop are accompanied by a band as well which would be amazing to see, today she was out of the city so it was just the guards. There is a bit of pomp and ceremony that goes with it and also today there was probably around 1,000 people in the square to see it being it the weekend and quite a nice day.

After the visit to Amalienborg Castle we walked along the waterfront and its trendy restaurants and hotels. We finally found our hop on/off bust stop and settled in on the bus to City Hall Square. We had lunch at a café near the square, a lovely meal of a burger and a pilsner for Wayne and goats cheese salad and Rose for Vicki. We had planned to go to City Hall as there is a planetarium and other astronomy related points of interest but unfortunately it closed at 1pm, by now it was already 1:30pm. We then went for a walk around Town Hall Square and saw a street performer playing South American inspired music, he was pretty good. After a few photos, including an animal rights protest march, it was back on the bus and back to Copenhagen Central to find the Christiania Tour.

We got back just in time as the traffic was chaos in Copenhagen today. Got on board the right bus and away we went on the Christiania tour. Our main aim was to find the street food vendors. After travelling for a while the driver announced we were now entering Christiania Freetown. It was a disused navy yard with all sorts of shanty built for people wanting an alternative lifestyle, bloody hippies Wayne said just as it was announced that was who lived there. Up until recent times you could buy soft drugs (including hash) on the street but this outlawed in the mid 90s but I'm sure it still goes on. The outside of Christiania Freetown has walls covered in graffiti and to be honest this was not our cup of tea.

The stop before the street food vendors was at the opera. A beautiful building surrounded on three sides by canals. On to the street food vendors. We opted to not disembark as we were now back in the shanty type surrounds of Christiania Freetown so opted to bypass this stop and instead stay on the bus and head back to Copenhagen Central. We then had the second worst cappuccino in the world served at I bagel, it was the milkiest uninspiring drink.

We then went across the road to the railway station but not before capturing a photo of the hundreds and hundreds of bikes at Copenhagen Station. It was now on the train/metro to Orestad and then to Bella Center, back to the hotel. We're booked in for dinner tonight at the hotel as we prepare to say goodbye, but definitely not forever, to one of the prettiest cities you'll ever see. Tomorrow we head by train from Copenhagen to Aalborg, the city where Wayne's father was born and raised to the age of 19 prior to heading on the six week voyage to Australia.

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Photos

Lovely light post
Rosenborg Castle

Gaurds Quarters - Rosenborg Castle
Middle right you can see the guards