Copenhagen and back…

Tuesday turned out to be a good day despite the wind and the rain on Monday night. Sunny, cool and windy. I am writing this on the train on the way back to Berlin…Wednesday morning.

I decided I needed to cover a lot of ground to see a wide area….Copenhagen is a good town to walk about in the downtown area but I wanted to see more and my knee has been bothering me.  I couldn’t for the life of me, find a map or a website that was user friendly to get me to the Little Mermaid on public transport…..so I bought 24 hour ticket for the Hop on Hop off bus and boat….for 210 Danish Kroner….about $30 and it was well worth it. You were given earphones because the tour has an audio guide, you could plug into an outlet near your seat on any of the green buses or green boats and choose your language.  It was a good decision.

So I made may first hop off at the Rosenborg castle….(which also happened to be the site of 3 caches, wouldn’t you know!) I didn’t go on a tour of the castle but walked in the garden for a while which is free.  There were loads of families and end of year field trips enjoying the day in large grassy areas,  picnicing and playing.   I even saw the changing of the guards.

At the first cache I met a nice young family from Florida that is just starting out in caching. The cache took me to a spot where there was a cannonball protruding from the castle wall about 10 feet up…..with a sign saying 1807.….I would never have seen that had I just been walking by. Another cache, an earth cache took me outside the Geologic Museum of Copenhagen where  there is a huge meteorite on display….again something that is not on the normal tourist agenda.

  Hop back on the green bus to see the Little Mermaid (she lost her head at least once!) it is closer to shore than I thought and lots of people photographing her. The day was beautiful and this was a good place to hop on the boat (thanks Lori for the suggestion).  I was only going to stay on it for a short time but decided I liked this mode of travel that I stayed on for the full boat tour ending back at the Mermaid. The view from the water is so different, going up and down the canals with beautiful old building on either side, very low bridges…..the Black Diamond (the Royal Library), the Copenhagen Opera House, the shopping center, were among the many new buildings with amazing architecture, oh and a sand castle competition on a barge.



Copenhagen from the water

The Black Diamond



The Shopping Mall




Low Bridges



The Sandcastles

Then back on the bus to complete the tour….I got on the first stop about 10:30am and got off at just after 5:00pm,  a very good day

I did a last tour of the pedestrian street on foot, getting a few small souvenirs and another cache. I’m not doing a lot of shopping because I don’t have room in my suitcase or pack for anything else.

I had a nice meal at a little restaurant and headed back to the hotel….I needed to get up bright an early for the 7:45 train.

I was out of hotel by 6:15 and took only 20 minutes to walk to the station.  Time to have breakfast and buy a sandwich for lunch on the train.  Oh and observing young people in white hats that had been popping up all yesterday....it seems it was graduation day for the grade 12 students....all grads wear a white danish style sailor hat, the band at the bottom identifying their school.  There were a few still milling around in the station not looking too healthy and still dressed in grad attire.

The train is whizzing along at speeds up to 200km/hr. back to Berlin , we should be there by 2:30. If the line isn’t too long or I attempt using the imposing red ticket machines, I will get my train ticket to Leipzig for Friday morning…..on my way to a geocaching event on the 29^th and 30^th.

Then head back to the house for laundry and repacking!

PS going through Hamburg …it’s raining there again…kind of glad I didn’t get that first home exchange to Hamburg!



  

And a photo for Cynthia and Cesar!
The middle of the main square in Copenhagen or Lima?