Back in Copenhagen - Danish Holiday Coming to An End - Final Post

The holiday was coming to an end and I was only a good long weekend away from having to board another lovely long-haul for down under. Before that, however, we were going to take full advantage of a long weekend opportunity in Copenhagen.

As I stated in the very first post, Copenhagen knows how to put on a show and if you ask, there is a good possibility of some of the friendly locals taking you for a little tour - particular if you actually know them ;-) We caught up with a(nother) friendly little gang of Larsens, which gave us the tour of Christianshavn where the keen tourist will be able to tick the spire of Church of Our Saviour (Vor Frelsers Kirke) and one of Copenhagen's newest and most popular sights: Noma - the best restaurant in the world!!


Best way to see Copenhagen is from the water! Head down to Nyhavn and jump onto one of the canal tours, that will take you around the harbor and canals for about 30kr ($6). The full tour will take you about 1 hour, and all the boats I have been on have excellent guides that are capable of covering all the stories in a minimum of 3 languages without even breaking a sweat.


Having to sit still in the flight back home to Sydney for a day I convinced my companions to join in on a solid walk up along the harbor front to Langelinie. Great walk with heaps of stuff going on around you. The new Opera House in the photo above is a newcomer, it only finished in 2005. Discussing the architectural quality of the Opera is a favorite topic of many Danes. Expectations were sky high since that combo - Danish architect and Opera House - has quite a fine track record. Sound quality is apparently state of the art, so no matter what people think of the building otherwise, it is probably fair to primarily judge an opera on its capability of producing nice sounds :-)


We reached Amalienborg and dad was on home turf, he is probably the only one I know that has actually been invited over to visit the Queen :-) Another visitor were in town and he had arrived in style - Paul Allen had sailed in on his ship "Octopus", 125m long, 60 crew on board, 2 helicopters and a submarine just to mention a few of the facts about this tinny .. it only just makes top ten on the largest superyacht list, but hopefully Paul does not care about that :-)


The little mermaid was not home at Langelinie this summer - she had made the trip to China - Expo 2010 - to help promoting Danish export, quite a task for an old lady :-) Instead we used a bit of time at the Gefion Fountain, which definitely has the size to impress - strange how it has been absolutely crushed in level of appreciation by a tiny non-water-squirting figurine sitting quietly on a rock :-)

Fantastic stuff! Great holiday! It nearly felt a little sad to leave for Sydney, but very few things in life are irreversible and I will probably do the same trip once and a while in the future. I have created a little Picasa album with all the photos from these Danish-Holiday blog posts and a few bonus ones. Feel free to access them by clicking the link below. :-)

Denmark summer 2010

Denmark - Summer Holiday - Part 1 - Copenhagen

Back in Denmark for two weeks of summer goodness! :-) Finally, after 5 years I managed to squeeze in a midyear holiday back home. It has actually been slightly unfair for the reputation of Danish weather, that I, during the last 5 years, have exclusively been observing the shortest, darkest and coldest days DK can produce - Chrismas is super cozy, but summer is easy to like :-)

Arriving in Copenhagen (København) early Friday, we took advantage of not being needed anywhere before later that day and managed to use half a day in Copenhagen running around pretending(?) to be tourists and catch up with one of the (nearly) locals - aka Jens - who took us out for a bit of birding and a coffee.

The impact factor of Copenhagen tourism is pretty world class! An hour or two pottering around in the old part of town will give you most of the essential CPH ticks. Round Tower (Rundetårn) - top photo - was build for astronomical observatory back in the day when nights were dark, today it works as a tourist vantage point where from excursions can be planned or hard-to-find hotels can be rediscovered :-) The bloke riding his horse aka the equestrian statue above is Archbishop Absalon who has been credited as the founder of Copenhagen .. an honor that is probably associated with the fact that back in the day the history books were written by the church for the church - archeological diggings have proven that the township where Absalon build his castle was already pretty well developed before he came riding in :-)


Amalienborg is where the Queen lives and the best spot to get photos of a "garder" a soldier from Royal Life Guards, who possesses exceptional skills in the art of standing still with way to warm headgear on. Just behind Amalienborg is the Marble Church (Marmor Kirken) which is worth a closer look - someone with a fast wide-angle lens could get away with some fantastic shots from there ... and if you have a bit of cash or a not so risk-avert financial adviser you should consider the apartments in this pretty old-fashion but very nice neighborhood :-)
Before heading of to Jutland (Jylland), we finished of with the sweetest little castle imaginable! Located in the center of Copenhagen is Rosenborg Castle (Rosenborg Slot), another subject that makes me consider investing in something wider than a 50mm and with a great garden surrounding it and attracting summer hungry Danes out for a few rays of summer sun, we fitted in just fine.