The True Spirit of Scandinavia -an Elderhostel Trip

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Day 11, Thursday, June 11, 2009
This morning we said good-bye to our Askov folk school and headed east in our bus toward Copenhagen.
We passed fields of red poppies, fields of bright green pastures, and lots of farms. At 1pm we arrived at our hotel in the small town of Hillerod just north of Copenhagen. Evidently hotel rooms in Copenhagen were fully booked months ahead of time by a medical conference and other conferences so we had to stay outside the city. After lunch our bus took us into Copenhagen but unfortunatley it was raining. We and 4 others decided on a canal boat tour in a glass covered canal boat. The tour guide was very good and we did get to see the Little Mermaid statue, the new very modern opera house, the royal yacht and the royal summer palace where the queen resides and the parliament building among other places. We six people decided to stick together and we strolled around and admired some of the fountains and architecture looked at the shops and the people.
Since it was raining and windy we didn't go into Tivoli, the large pleasure park in the middle of the city. It costs about 17 american dollars each just to get in. Instead we found a wonderful Italien restaurant which was located on a cobble stone square a few blocks from the main streets. (A young lady at the money change booth gave Gene directions for the restaurant or we never would have stumbled upon it!) Since we were well before the general European dinner hour we had our choice of tables. Our waiter welcomed us with open arms and even hung up all our dripping wet coats for us. His name (oddly enough) was Atilla, like the Hun was what he said when we didn't understand his pronunciation. The manager even agreed to take our American money because they charge 6% for using your international credit card. I had a glass of thier house red wine and spagetti with seafood. The others had spagetti bolongese or pizza. Our dinner for the two spagetti dishes and my wine was 93 American dollars. The food was delicious, and the restaurant was lovely with its brick walls, arched doorways and oil paintings of Italy decorating the walls. The Italien food was a nice change after all the Scandinavian food we have been eating which has been very good also. We returned to our hotel in Hillenröd and could hear the rain pouring down during the night. Good night from rainy Hillenröd. It's tomorrow that we go to Sweden! Phyllis and Gene

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