It’s Day # 1
And we’re NOT 21…anymore…
I think it’s safe to say that we bit off a bit more than we could chew today, but we’re having a blast! Our total travel time was about 18 hours, when adding up all the time waiting in airports. We left our house in Alexandria yesterday morning, boarded our Air Canada flight to Montreal, sat there for 7 hours, and then flew first class to Copenhagen. Poor Jessi didn’t get any sleep in our lay-flat seats on the plane, but I was able to get a solid 3 hours. We arrived bleary-eyed and excited to Copenhagen airport at about 7 AM local time and caught the metro into the city. We were VERY early to the hotel, and there were no early check-ins available, but they were kind enough to stow our bags.
Some things happening in Copenhagen this week: Copenhagen PRIDE and an Iron Man Triathlon! The hotels are packed. The streets are plastered with pride flags (awesome), and book stores are decked-out, featuring related literature and swag. Folks were walking into the hotel with massive bike-shaped bags over their shoulders for the Iron Man Triathlon, and we watched in awe as folks slung their bikes (in these bags) over their shoulders and walked off to the tiny elevators. Some laws of physics were manipulated for sure!
Unladen of our bags, we decided to take a quick Huffowicz tour of the city. No Huffowicz tour comes at a distance of less than 6 miles, and so we wandered the streets, bumping into many of the various sights we came here to see!
The first thing we found was the main gate to Tivoli Gardens, the third oldest amusement park in the world (since 1843)! We will be spending a whole day there on this trip, riding roller coasters and enjoying the gardens.
We also found one of about 3 LEGO stores that we have bumped into so far! LEGO is Danish, if you didn’t know, and also the plural of LEGO is…LEGO. One of the stores had a particularly cool setup with a model of the Roman Colosseum and dioramas of seemingly most of the Olympic sport events surrounding it!
Then we walked into town a bit and found ourselves at the seat of the Danish government at Slotsholmen, where we got our first glimpse of Christianborgslot. It is only building in the world to host all of its country’s branches of government! We are planning to come back and tour it.
Then we wound our way up the round tower (Rundetaarn). When I say this, I mean that we both wound our way up TO the location of the tower, and then we WOUND our way UP the actual tower! The Rundetaarn was founded in the 1650s and was built by the Danish King Christian IV. The purpose of the tower is as an observatory, and it houses a really cool equestrian staircase all the way to the top! Basically, the tower is built like a giant corkscrew, so that Christian IV could ride his horses up to the observatory at the top! Astronomy was a huge deal in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as nations competed to make discoveries about astronomical phenomenon that could help with navigation. There is an amazing MOVING heliocentric map of the solar system hung near the top of the tower. I am unclear on whether it still moves or is accurate, but it was quite a thing to behold. One observation I made was that it contains 6 planets (out to Saturn). Neptune and Uranus are later discoveries, although not by terribly much (late 18th century). Tzar Peter the Great of Russia is reported to have ridden by horse to the top of the tower with his wife Catherine I, who reportedly rode behind him in a carriage. The tower offers stunning views of the city from the top! It gave us a great orientation of where everything in the city is located, and it was also a great preview of things to come this week! On our way up the tower, we were able to get a glimpse of Trinity Church, which is actually connected to the tower. There was an exhibit on the way up in the tower path that contains the church’s bell loft. In that loft is the removed geocentric version of the solar system map (or possibly a recreation). We still kind of think that we’re the center of the universe, though, don’t we?
We were absolutely exhausted, but our wanderlust was not yet slaked. We walked a short distance to Kongenshave (King’s Garden) at Rosenborgslot. It’s a beautiful garden park in front of one of Denmark’s amazingly beautiful palaces. The park is shaded with lines of Linden trees, under which we took shelter from the pretty constant rain. There are fountains and statues in the park. We have vowed to return to explore them in full. Jessi took some bird photos and added some new feathered-friends to her lifetime birding records!
After all that, we weaved our way through the city’s winding streets back to our hotel, begging for a (still) early check-in. Regrettably, with the city so full, this was not possible, but we were able to sit in the lobby and wait until we could get a room (more importantly a bed to sleep). We’re pretty wiped out, but we are excited about tomorrow! There is a huge PRIDE parade happening tomorrow! We might attend that or we might take advantage of the crowd concentration elsewhere and go to Tivoli for the day. We’re playing this by ear and being flexible. Truthfully, I’m not 100% sure we’ll be able to fit it all into this trip! I’m getting the impression that we’re going to need to come back already! The city is alive and bustling. There are so many amazing things to do and see. We will be spending a few more days here in Copenhagen before moving in-land a bit and then up to Sweden.
As I write this entry, our hotel window is open, and the pride concert is happening at Radhuspladsen right next to us. So I’ve had an amazing soundtrack of dance music, Whitney Houston, soaring rock ballads, and a cheering crowd helping me to write this entry for you all. I have stopped a few times to politely acknowledge the applause. These people really like it when you write about their country I guess. The music stops, and then there are wild screams and cheers…obviously for me….
I hope You’ve enjoyed this FIRST slice of our trip. We are definitely enjoying ourselves so far! We’ll try and keep updating this blog daily in the afternoon/evening US Eastern time.
