Copenhagen: My favourite city
Have you ever gone someplace and just instantly had a ‘vibe’ about it (good or bad)?
That was me in 2018 when the European Coaster Club stopped here in Copenhagen on their Scandinavia tour.
I literally stepped off the bus in front of the hotel, took a breath, looked around, and just fell completely in love with the city.
I don’t think I really had a favourite city until I visited Cape Town, S.Africa… then it was replaced by Vienna, Austria. Then Vienna was walloped by Copenhagen.
So I might as well get the “money shots” out of the way right up front. You know, the ones you see on all the post cards…
Money shot #1: The Little Mermaid
Reminder: you can click any image and see it fully on your screen without having to scroll
Fine… I really don’t understand why she’s such a tourist stop, but she is. Apparently, the locals are just as confused. They love her, but they don’t understand why so many people come to see her.
Second money shot: the canal buildings
There. You’ve seen them. Add me to the list of literally millions of tourists who have taken both of those photos.
Also: have a look just under the umbrellas - that’s wall-to-wall people. Holy tourist invasion, Batman, I think everyone in Europe was here today.
SO - now that you’ve seen the shots you were probably expecting to see, here’s a bunch of other lovely things to see in Copenhagen.
We sailed in today and had a really nice view of the ski slope building.
I should explain. Copenhagen needed to build a waste disposal plant. But those are ugly. They don’t really benefit anyone architecturally, and they certainly don’t contribute to making their surroundings better.
So they decided to build it as a slant and put a ski run on top of it. It’s fake turf skiing (not snow) but it’s still good for keeping up your skills in the off-season.
FYI: the ’smoke’ coming out the top of it is steam and the burning of the waste creates energy which is put into the power grid.
Next to it (not pictured) is a rather bizarre thing. Denmark is chock full of pigs and cattle. Some of the thousands of livestock are brought to the facility next to the ski slope building, where their natural methane gas is used as fuel to heat water. Our guide said, “so when you turn on the hot water tap, know that the water is heated by pig farts.”
The photo above is the view from our ship cabin. It has nothing to do with pig farts, but it breaks up a big block of text nicely, so there you go.
The Danish are a very ecologically concerned people. Around 60% of trips in Copenhagen are done with bicycles. Only 5% are done with cars. 37% of their energy comes from windmills.
We began the morning with a walking tour around the area where the ship is docked - which was great, because I didn’t get to this part of the city at all on my previous visit. In addition to the Little Mermaid, we saw lots of statues, such as this beauty - Nike, the goddess of victory.
And this one, which I like even better. I don’t remember who she is - she might even be Nike again for all I remember.
We saw where the queen lives. The owner of Maersk (yes, the shipping container company, which is headquartered here) built the queen a garden and he commissioned four obelisks to sit at the corners. The design is supposed to look like burning cigarettes as a constant reminder to the queen that she should quit her nasty habit (she hasn’t).
I got a really nice panorama shot of all the palace buildings, but if you’re looking at this on a small screen, it likely isn’t going to look great:
The famous marble church is right behind the palace campus
The queen has guards who wear Canadian bearskin hats. Apparently, Canada sends them new ones each year.
I enjoyed seeing this part of the city, but it lacked the energy that I remembered from my previous visit, where I was in the city centre. Occasionally, on the walking tour, you could catch a glimpse of buildings in the city centre peeking over the trees.
We walked thru the Citadel, the oldest operating military barracks in the world. (Circa 1664)
Then we stopped for a Danish on the way back to the ship (we’re in Denmark- how could we not?)
It was really good.
I like to experience eating foods that are named for places while in the place they’re named for. So I’ve had a frankfurter in Frankfurt, Yukon Gold potatoes in the Yukon, a Hershey bar in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Buffalo wings in Buffalo, etc etc.
Now I’ve had a Danish in Denmark. [checks box]
After the tour, we had a quick rest on the ship then caught the shuttle bus into the city centre. WOW, was it crowded!
We found a Georg Jensen store - he was a silversmith with really nice stuff and wonderful designs.
We also found a Lego store with a fun mural (made of Lego, of course) and display pieces
But getting to either store was like being a salmon swimming upstream. It was just too crowded to really enjoy the walk around.
We eventually got to the City Hall square with its picturesque buildings and some weird rhino/shrimp/dragon gargoyles.
We passed by Tivoli Gardens today. We briefly considered going in just for a walk-around, but the crowds were insane today and I didn’t want Rob’s first experience with one of my favourite places on earth to be one of jostling and fighting through a mass of people. That would be like going to New Orleans for the first time during Mardi Gras. I want him to love it as much as I do - and we’ll be back here in a couple weeks to do it properly during the work week.
Our ship’s info on the city mistakenly listed Tivoli Gardens as the world’s oldest amusement park. That’s not true.
Tivoli Gardens is actually the third-oldest. It opened in 1843.
The second-oldest is Wiener Prater, which opened in 1766.
The oldest is Bakken, about 45 minutes outside Copenhagen, which opened in 1583. No, that’s not a typo. Yes, it’s still open.
I just looked it up, and I’ve been to 7 of the 8 oldest amusement parks in the world. I’m just missing one in Japan. Someday, perhaps.
I also looked up the ten oldest wooden coasters and I’ve been on 9 of those. Missing one in Australia. Maybe I’ll get that one someday, too.
AAAAANYWAY, Copenhagen is an absolutely gorgeous city. I say it has the energy of New York, but with old-world architecture. And I love how they save their old buildings - take for example this gorgeous old building with the dome on top:
I’ve no idea what that was originally, but now it’s a big department store. Sure, it would’ve likely been a LOT easier (and cheaper) to just knock down the old building and put up a new store, but that’s just not what they do here. The building to the left of it with the rainbow columns is a bank. Row houses from the 1700s are still in use. Rather than tear them down, they get renovated to add modern conveniences like electricity and plumbing.
And they still have room for some green space, too.
We’re coming back here after the cruise to spend a few extra days and to go to Tivoli Gardens on Aug 16 - which is Roller Coaster Day.
I can’t think of a better place to be on that day - and Rob has said he’ll ride it with me.
I won’t go into a lot about it right now, but if you want to know a bit of the history and see some pics - as well as an explanation as to WHY an old coaster from 1914 that barely goes 30mph would be my favourite of all time, you can read my article on it here:
https://www.ellocoaster.com/rutschebanen
And that’s it for today. Tomorrow, we’re flip-flopping in that we’ll be in a city that Rob’s been to, but I haven’t. Should be fun.