Our Baltic cruise ended early on the morning of Saturday, June 25th, when the Regal Princess docked in the harbor at Copenhagen, Denmark - 11 days after we'd set sail.
We had arranged for a transfer from the ship to a local hotel (the Scandic Copenhagen), and at about 9:30 we boarded the bus for the drive into town. We'd packed our luggage and put it outside our stateroom door the night before, and it was sent separately to the hotel ... a bellman delivered it to us a few hours after we checked in. At the hotel, we were greeted by a Princess representative who gave us our taxi vouchers for the trip to the airport at the end of our stay, and a sheet of detailed instructions for arrival, departure, and sightseeing recommendations.
Despite the presence in the lobby of about 390,000 people, our check-in went very smoothly, and a very pleasant young lady at the desk (who, like just about everyone else, spoke better English than I did) soon had us on our way to our room on the 9th floor. It was small and a bit spartan in an Ikea sort of way, but had two wonderful features: a heated floor in the bathroom, and a nice reading bench under the window. We didn't care all that much about the room, though, as we planned to spend much of our time out seeing the sights.
After we got settled in, we went back down to the lobby to ask Javi, the Princess representative, for some advice on a good place for lunch. He recommended the Cafe Emma, a few blocks from the hotel, but noted that "it's pricey, but so is everything in Copenhagen."
We strolled there and had a very nice lunch of goat cheese sandwiches ("gedeost") and baskets of some the best french fries I've ever had ... pricey, yes ... the bill came to 480 kroner, or about $72 at the current exchange rate!
After lunch and a short nap (hey, we were on vacation!), we decided to walk across town to see the famous statue of The Little Mermaid which, according to the hotel website, was not all that far from the hotel. The concierge gave us a map, but it was pretty useless, so Agnes suggested that we try using Google Maps on our iPhones. Yes, Dear Readers, Google Maps worked just fine, and even automatically converted the distances from miles to kilometers (about 4.7 each way). It was a warm and sunny day, and the route took us down the main pedestrian shopping street (Agnes bravely resisted the siren call of a large Lego store) and through a bunch of doglegs and twists before bringing us to the harbor and the world-famous Little Mermaid ...
If you've never seen this statue before (and I had) I hate to burst your bubble, but it's not worth going out of your way to visit. Yes, it's cute in its way. But it's definitely "little," surrounded by hordes of tourists* and souvenir/snack stands, in an out-of-the-way place, and very much an anticlimax to a long walk. Agnes's comment was along the lines of "That's it??"
We walked back to the hotel, with Google Maps routing us by a different path that showed some other parts of the city, which is full of beautiful parks ...
and interesting architecture ...
Several times along our walk in both directions to The Little Mermaid, and again early the next morning when I went out to wander the streets and take pictures, we saw trucks like this one, full of young people cheering and yelling and blaring loud music.
I couldn't figure out what they were making noise about, and couldn't read their signs, and so I went to trusty Google Translate. As near as I can figure, the sign says something like, "We came to school drunk**, and got the highest averages anyhow." If anyone out there speaks Danish and can improve on that, please leave a comment!
We'd made reservations for dinner that evening at a local restaurant recommended by the Princess representative for excellent, "real" Danish food, but we were both so worn out after the long day and the long, warm hike across town that we decided to cancel the reservation and eat in the hotel restaurant instead. Good decision - the food was amazing. As was the price.
Our plan for the next day was to visit the famous Tivoli Gardens Amusement Park, which was a mere 10-minute walk from our hotel ...
We'd made reservations for dinner that evening at a local restaurant recommended by the Princess representative for excellent, "real" Danish food, but we were both so worn out after the long day and the long, warm hike across town that we decided to cancel the reservation and eat in the hotel restaurant instead. Good decision - the food was amazing. As was the price.
Our plan for the next day was to visit the famous Tivoli Gardens Amusement Park, which was a mere 10-minute walk from our hotel ...
The park was absolutely beautiful and, in comparison to similar parks in the States, very neat and tidy. There were huge numbers of people, but it didn't feel crowded. It was full of narrow streets lined with shops and restaurants and various attractions, shady walkways and beautifully sculpted flower gardens ...
There were brightly painted walls and interesting sculptures everywhere you looked. I liked this fellow, who took advantage of his high perch to spend a little time reading*** ...
Here are a few other shots that show random areas of the park ...
That evening we had dinner again in the hotel restaurant (being too tired to go anywhere else), and then went to bed very early, as we had to meet our taxi to the airport at 3:30 the next morning ...
... and the story of our return home is another heroic saga in itself, one best told over a few drinks.
To wrap up, here are a few of my general observations about Copenhagen ...
- It's beautiful.
- The people are very friendly.
- Everyone speaks better English than you do.
- If you're homophobic, you probably want to go somewhere else. Same-sex couples are very much in evidence, and are completely ignored by everyone else.
- It's horrendously expensive.
- It's the most bicycle-friendly place I've ever seen. Bicycles were parked everywhere, and were lined up outside virtually every building, in addition to very large bike parking lots dotted around the city. It seemed like there was a bicycle rental shop or store or repair shop on almost every block, and cyclists had their own traffic lanes and signals. This was just one small sample, shot from our bus ...
And that, Dear Readers, is the end of Bilbo's summary of our Baltic cruise vacation. We had a wonderful time, saw many beautiful sights, met lots of interesting people ... and were glad to be back home again.
Have a good day. Tomorrow, we go back to the regular ranting. More thoughts then.
Bilbo
Like some parks in the States (Disney World in Orlando comes to mind), the Tivoli was divided into themed areas separated by flower beds, green lawns, and many lakes and streams. One of my favorites was this Persian-style palace with a beautiful garden and fountain in front ...
If you look closely in the lower right corner of the previous picture, you can see this fellow - a solar powered robot lawn mower gussied up to look like a bunny ...
Lots of birds were wandering free around the park as well, including this gorgeous peacock ...
And dozens of ducks and geese, who had their own little houses set up at various locations ...
This pirate ship, moored in one of the larger lakes, was actually a family restaurant ...
The park opened at 11:00 AM; we arrived a few minutes after that and stayed until around 5:30, after enjoying lunch at the Promenaden i Tivoli followed by an enormous ice cream cone later in the afternoon ...
... and the story of our return home is another heroic saga in itself, one best told over a few drinks.
To wrap up, here are a few of my general observations about Copenhagen ...
- It's beautiful.
- The people are very friendly.
- Everyone speaks better English than you do.
- If you're homophobic, you probably want to go somewhere else. Same-sex couples are very much in evidence, and are completely ignored by everyone else.
- It's horrendously expensive.
- It's the most bicycle-friendly place I've ever seen. Bicycles were parked everywhere, and were lined up outside virtually every building, in addition to very large bike parking lots dotted around the city. It seemed like there was a bicycle rental shop or store or repair shop on almost every block, and cyclists had their own traffic lanes and signals. This was just one small sample, shot from our bus ...
Have a good day. Tomorrow, we go back to the regular ranting. More thoughts then.
Bilbo
* I was standing on the staircase down to the beach, framing a picture, when a young Oriental woman came blasting up the stairs and slammed full-tilt into me, jamming the camera into my face ... and kept on going without a word! I'm used to people carelessly blocking photos I'm trying to take, but this was the first time I'd actually been run down.
** Google Translate actually gave me "Came to school worn, anyway we got the highest average." The editorial license is my own.
*** I believe he was supposed to represent Hans Christian Andersen reading his stories to children.
*** I believe he was supposed to represent Hans Christian Andersen reading his stories to children.
