Copenhagen, Denmark

When Kelly arrived in London one of her first objectives was to head over to Copenhagen to see her brother John and niece Freya. Since we hadn't yet been to Denmark and a bank holiday weekend was coming up, Nick and I decided to tag along. We flew out around midday on Saturday and arrived in Copenhagen mid-afternoon. John and Freya met us at the airport and we made our way into Copenhagen on the train. First stop was our hotel - the very odd but very cheap and practical Cab Inn in Frederiksberg, just out of central Copenhagen near the lakes. Half way between a hostel and a hotel, the rooms are modeled on the cabin of a ship (hence 'Cab Inn') with a super small bathroom and (in our room) three bunk beds. I took the photo below lying on the floor - I volunteered for the top bunk which you can see with the guard - well above the bottom bunk (with the green pillow). Scary!



From the hotel we walked in to Copenhagen to go to Tivoli Gardens, the all purpose amusement park with everything from restaurants to outdoor classical music concerts and beautiful gardens to carnival rides and games alleys. One of the scarier rides (which we didn't go on) -



And one of the alleys featuring traditional carnival games -



Some dodgy carnival food later and it was back to the hotel.

The following morning we woke up to a perfect Spring day which was ideal for our planned bike tour of Copenhagen. The hire place was right behind the hotel and we made it down there in plenty of time for the 10.30 start - early enough to take our bikes for a quick test run to get a coffee. We made it back in one piece and headed out on our tour with Nils, our guide. Nils and Kelly -



Riding around Copenhagen is brilliant - not only is it really flat, but there are bike paths on most roads and where there aren't, cars and bikes happily co-exist. Nils was also great - very informative about the history of Copenhagen and in the 2.5 hours of the tour, we covered almost the whole of the city, taking in all the key sights. This (I think - blame me, not Nils for any inaccuracies henceforth) is the oldest church in Copenhagen -



The most famous tourist attraction in Copenhagen, Den Lille Havfrue (known to us as the 'Little Mermaid') -



The home of the Danish royal family since 1794, the Amalienborg Palace (but no sight of Princess Mary) -



A street that I thought was interesting -



Inside a courtyard -



People taking advantage of the beautiful weather at Orsteds Parken where we stopped for a drink -



We also rode through Christiania, the famous 'freetown', however they have a strongly enforced 'no photo' policy so we couldn't take any photographs. Christiania is probably best described as an 'alternative community' and was founded in the early 1970s in (ironically) a former army barracks. Up until around 2004, Christiania was fairly independent however the growth of the drug trade inside the community created conflict both internally (turf wars) and externally (with the hard-right wing government). Police began raids which have continued, and escalated (with strong retaliation from the residents), ever since. However Christiania remains a tourist destination for its uniqueness and unconventionality, even if the patrolling riot police are quite intimidating. Update: two weeks after we left, rioting broke out with more than 50 locals arrested.

After a great morning on the bikes, we decided to keep them and rented them for the rest of the day. After some lunch, Kelly and I headed to the Rundetarn (Round Tower), built in 1643 -



...with one of the best views over the city at 209 meters high -



After that we took advantage of the sunshine for a late afternoon drink -



For dinner we rode our bikes to a restaurant called 'Peder Ox' where we met John for some traditional style Danish food - very delicious. After dinner we rode our bikes home - along with many others after their evening out - brilliant! The other great thing about bikes in Denmark is that you don't need to worry about leaving them - not only does everyone ride bikes, but it's generally a safe country so theft is relatively non-existent.

The next day was fairly cold and overcast and after finding a good coffee, Kelly caught up with John while Nick and I headed out on own. We obviously couldn't go past Cafe Nick on Nikolajgade (street), next to the Sankt Nikolai Restaurant without taking a photo -



From there we went to Rosenborg Slot, a castle built in the 17th century by Christian IV -



The Royal Treasury is in the basement, home to the Danish crown jewels -



This gown was from a special exhibition in one of the buildings on the palace grounds - the wedding dress worn by Sophie Magdelene, daughter of Frederik V, in 1766. Almost 2m wide!! -



After the castle we wandered around central Copenhagen a little more, made a quick trip through the Danish Design Center before we met up with Kelly again at the train station to make our way back to the airport to catch our flight to London.