Copenhagen, Denmark ... more than Hans Christian Anderson

Good ... now that we have the mermaid out of the way, we can now talk about Copenhagen in some more detail.  This is a very large, cosmopolitan city that has managed to maintain a lot of its historic appeal.  Unfortunately, much of the downtown is under construction with the expansion of their subway system, so walking about gets a little bit tricky.  

For much of its history, Denmark has been at war with someone, mostly with Sweden. The war with Sweden lasted from the 15^th to the 17^th centuries because of religious differences, due to the reformation movement at the time.  Despite the continuous wars, Copenhagen flourished as a political and cultural centre.  We discovered, in Sweden, that a common expression there is “never trust a Dane” because of mass murders carried out by the Danish army against the Swedes in the 17^th century. We don’t know if there is a comparable expression here in Denmark, perhaps “never date a Swedish hockey player”.

City Hall Square 

 We began our discovery tour of Copenhagen by looking for an art supply store.  We were lucky that there was one just three blocks from our bus stop.  Gail has had so many art students that we were running out of watercolour paper.  We had lunch afterwards at a nice pub which was reasonably priced and offered a salad bar ... and Danish beer of course.

 

We decided that we would tour the city on a “hop-on hop-off” bus and then a harbour boat tour.  We caught the bus at the entrance to Tivoli Gardens and were taken around to all of the important places such as the palace of the king and queen, Rosenberg castle, several cathedrals, the Opera house, the old Stock Exchange building, a variety of parks, and the Little Mermaid statue.  

Spire of famous church

 

The boat tour was very interesting.  We got to see several buildings up-close, many different old and new boats, a naked couple standing on a dock ready to go for a swim, the royal yacht, and the Little Mermaid from the water side.  The boat also took us through several of the canals that run all through the city which provided us with some beautiful streetscapes to look at. Interestingly enough, the weather here is just like in London ; if a little cloud passes overhead, it rains and immediately afterwards the sun shines brilliantly until the next cloud comes by bringing more rain.

One of several canal views

Several boats along with our cruise ship

Late afternoon libations after our boat tour

 

After a bit of shopping, we went searching for our shuttle bus and discovered an amazing sight.  It appears that John has a tourist business in Denmark that we didn`t know about.  Presumably these buses run on diesel and not on tourist-generated methane, or did they know we had just arrived from Germany having consumed a lot of sauerkraut and pilsner (note: this photo has not been photoshopped). 

 

Now we are off to Dover to begin our third leg of this European adventure as we travel all around the British Isles.