Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Copenhagen
Our excursion time wasn't till 12:15 p.m., so we had breakfast and started walking towards downtown Copenhagen. Kind of overcast, chilly and amazingly blustery. The wind became an issue at times, making it very difficult to keep moving. It finally became easier in the city center.
We only had the map provided in the daily newsletter from the ship, but was not very detailed. We had no idea what we were looking. Fortunately, we found a map at a coffee shop where we stopped for a bathroom break.
As we wandered along, we stumbled across a money exchange. We exchanged all our Swedish kroner for Danish kroner. We wandered around some more, but we had to turn around by about 10:30. It had taken almost an hour to walk into the city, so we had to start our return walk to give us enough time to return to the boat to meet the excursion.
On the way back we found The Little Mermaid:
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Our afternoon tour guide was very entertaining - cracking jokes and (more importantly) not leaving us in the dust like the guide from Hamburg.
It's just amazing the amount of construction going on in Copenhagen now - they are building a new underground metro system. The wind kept blowing chunks of dust everywhere.
We spent about an hour at Tivoli Gardens - an old, beautiful amusement park. Here's one called "Nautilus"
We had a free drink at the aquarium.
After the Tivoli gardens, we stopped at the Royal Palace: 874
And here's a palace guard with his great hat: 878 (palace guard)
Our day in Copenhagen is relatively short, with an all aboard time of 4:30, so now it is time to head back to the ship. The distance is not far, but there is (apparently) unusual traffic due to all the construction, and we arrive back right at 4:25. Unfortunately, there is no time to check out the shops right at the port. I only wish that this excursion had a morning option, so we could wander around the city in the afternoon - like we did in Helsinki.
Alas! we have run out of ports. Tomorrow is our last full day on board as we spend a day at sea heading towards Amsterdam.
Copenhagen is a wonderful city! We had three days there when we took our Baltic cruise in 2005! Almost went back for another Baltic criuse this summer but decided against it at the last minute. It's on the list for next year though!
ReplyDeleteMaybe by next year most of the construction will be done. They are building a new metro system, and everything is a dusty mess. And it was really windy - blowing gook all over the place.
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