Copenhagen 2024
We opted for the high-speed train from Stockholm to Copenhagen. I thought it would be easy, and at first, it was. Then we stopped on the tracks for 55 minutes only 5 minutes away from our stop because of an accident ahead of us. By that time, we had to change trains to roll into Copenhagen, and that train was completely packed with people headed to the airport and Copenhagen. There were too many people plus baby strollers, bikes, and large suitcases.
We finally made it to our hotel, Scandic Copenhagen. Denmark is my 62nd country!
We took a walk in the balmy summer evening and found ourselves outside the famous Tivoli Gardens. It’s a garden, an amusement park, and a cafe and restaurant mecca, but it looks like it’s best for kids and teens. It is said that Walt Disney visited here and used it as a model for Disneyland.
We found an Italian restaurant and ate good pasta.
We had a pretty good night’s sleep though we forgot to wake up in the middle of the night to look for the Northern Lights, which are supposedly happening now.
Day 2
We had a great breakfast in our hotel, walked to the hop-on, hop-off bus stop, and rode the entire loop. It took about two hours. Copenhagen is adorable. Everywhere you look there’s a canal or the Baltic Sea or a park.
We took a rest at our hotel then walked the entire length of the world’s longest pedestrian shopping street (Guinness World Record) and found ourselves at the super cute canal with brightly colored houses. It’s the money shot in Copenhagen and there were zillions of tourists there to prove it. My late husband took a picture of this place and he was so proud of it. I’ll have to compare mine to his, but I’m sure his photo didn’t have gay pride flags in it. The Scandinavians are all in on Gay Pride. There’s a square with tents and booths devoted to Pride set up right now and we want to walk through it. There are gay pride flags everywhere and even airlines and hotel clerks have lanyards celebrating it.
The canal trip was an hour long and was so interesting. It traveled both across rivers and through canals designed to look like Amsterdam. They completely succeeded in that because at certain points you would swear you were in Amsterdam. There were hundreds of people sunbathing on the many waterfront decks and eating at the restaurants. But we saw perhaps only 10 people actually swimming in the Baltic. It froze over in Covid and people were able to skate to Sweden.
We are just so delighted with the weather. It’s sunny and warm. But we run into rain for the rest of our trip starting Friday. We leave for Bergen and the fjords on Saturday and it’s supposed to rain hard there. It’s generally a rainy place but I wonder if it’s the beginnings of hurricane Debby that left the US a few days ago.
Before returning to our hotel, we had a burger at the Gasoline Grill in the Vesterbros area. We are both sore and tired from all the walking. It’s pretty hard to prepare for the walking ahead of time in Arizona where it’s too hot to be outside for long. Additionally, the granite stone walkways in much of Europe are just way harder on your legs and feet than on a paved road or treadmill. Tomorrow we will turn to the various museums of Copenhagen and perhaps take a trip to Roskilde about 30 minutes away.
Day 3
We had the usual delicious breakfast today, including a crazy good cinnamon roll treat. We walked to the bus and rode to the Glypotetek Museum. They had lots of sculpture, which was clearly extensive and impressive but we were much more interested in the Impressionist paintings. They had a few Van Gogh’s and lots of Gauguin and Degas. There were both paintings and sculptures by Degas, including one of the many Dancers that the museum curators had dressed up in a frilly tutu and satin ribbon. The museum was very hard to get around in. It had slow elevators and long staircases, with each step requiring two steps for Mom. Very annoying.
We left there and walked to the train station. We caught a train to Roskilde and saw the Lutheran Cathedral where all the Danish royalty are buried. It was impressive. We waited to see a very old clock in action at the top of the hour. I’m not sure what it is called here, but in Germany, they call it a glockenspiel.
Before we left the train station, we bought our train tickets to the airport for Saturday.
In the evening we went to the Pride Festival and had a beer. Then we had pizza and creme brulee at the Italian place. Absolutely delicious!
Day 4
We had rain today and didn’t do quite as much. We rode the Red sightseeing bus to the far end of the route and got off to see the main art museum in Copenhagen. It was okay. They had a new addition that was architecturally cool but the modern art there was odd. There was a video of the euthanation of a horse, a row of reclining smashed-up manikins of women titled “Swimmers”, and a display of chairs that an artist found in the trash. The section on French art in the 1920s was great. The rest of the museum was filled with Danish and Nordic art from 1600 – 1800. Just…figures and landscapes. It was hard to get interested and even though it’s much cooler today, there apparently isn’t any ventilation in the entire building and it was just too hot.
We rode the bus one stop and got off to eat lunch at a cafe. We had the open-faced Danish Smørrebrød sandwiches. Very good!
After a hotel room rest, we walked out for dinner in a lively part of town. We had delicious pho and ramen at a beautiful restaurant. We mostly avoided the mild rainstorms all day. I hope we are as lucky in Bergen.
