Copenhagen

August 28, 2009, Friday
Copenhagen

Once again the weather looked great as we started out the door this morning. We wanted to go to the Royal Treasury to see all the gifts and gold and the royal jewels. It is in one of the oldest castles that is in this area and the Danes are quite proud of it. We got there and discovered that if we timed our visit right, we would be able to see the changing of the guard and so that’s exactly what we did. All that pomp and silliness that these folks go through but it really is fun to watch. At the treasury there were soldiers marching back and forth with a gun over their shoulder and they would speak to the visitors and weren’t all solemn and staid and at one point one of them came near me and I turned to have some fun with him and he said ,”Get away!! You must stay 2 meters away from me!” Yikes!! I’m not at all sure what he would have done if I had gone any closer but he was dead serious that I HAD to stay away from him. Do you suppose that he was afraid of this lil ole lady? LOL

After visiting the royal palace and the crown jewels, we decided that we could walk to the canal boat ride. Sadly we didn’t know where we were going and we had left our map in our room so we started asking people and it got downright funny. First we would be sent one way and then we would be sent another way. We saw LOTS of Copenhagen before I finally recognized a place we had been and I thought that the canal tours were just across the park. Sure enough!! We FINALLY reached our goal!! It felt good to sit down and ride for a while!! I really never realized that Copenhagen is very much like Venice in that it is laced with canals and there are boats and houseboats everywhere. We had a lovely boat tour and it was nice to see many of the places from a different perspective. It had become very dark and threatening and I was sure that we were going to be in a downpour for our ride but it never started to rain until we were within sight of the dock!! And then it poured and I got soaked. Don was carrying the bag with some shopping and so he was able to cover himself a little bit. But the rain didn’t last long and by the time we walked home we were dry.

I’ve uploaded all my pictures so far onto the web album but I’m not too sure how to access it!! When I get that figured out I’ll post a note. We’ve now seen all of Copenhagen that we wanted to see except Tivoli Gardens and we are saving that for when we come back through. We’ve been back and forth past it and we hear people laughing and screaming on the rides but we haven’t stuck our noses in the park yet.

Just got back from another fabulous dinner. Tonight we had the casserole dish filled with rice, some rust colored sauce and a miniature slice of something that tasted suspiciously like hot dog. More nasty brown bread with seeds and fruit. Ugh!!

Then we decided to get ready to go on the road tomorrow so we went to the car to put our shopping and dirty clothes in it. Well mercy me!! There on our windshield were THREE tickets. One for each day so far. I took them to the front desk and announced that they didn’t look like good news and the girl told me that each one was for 500DK (approximately $100. This was definitely not good news but I was pretty sure that we were going to handle them the same way we took care of the Hungarian ticket---ignore them. In fact, she asked where our car was from and when we told her she advised us to ignore them, so I guess we are going to be fugitives from Danish justice!! Egads!!

There is a REALLY popular bar next door to our hotel that is affiliated with our hotel and tonight there are people lined up for it so I was asking our hotel staff about it and it is a really different place. Apparently you are issued a big thick parka when you go in to it. It is called an “icebar” and it is literally all ice. The glasses are ice, the chairs are ice, the bar is ice and everything is kept at C-5 degrees (about F 20 degrees). We would have peeked in but there is a 200DK cover charge and nobody that I’ve seen looks over the age of 25, so we are taking a pass!!