Around Copenhagen

We woke up to another lovely morning, and soon headed out to the Rosenborg Palace – home of the Danish Crown Jewels. The palace was very small, and most of the rooms are being renovated, so we could only see about 3 rooms of the palace (no discount on the ticket though), so we quickly moved on to the jewels themselves. They are quite exquisite. We were amazed at the difference in presentation and security of these compared to Scotland and England. We could take as many photos as we liked, there didn’t appear to be the big vault doors or anything!

From here we walked down to Amalienborg Palace, where the Queen currently lives (the flag was flying so she was home!), ready to watch the changing of the guard. Again, much less pomp and ceremony than at Buckingham Palace. We decided to have a look in Amalienborg Palace, and managed to convince the ticket sellers to sell us the ‘combined ticket’ even though we had already bought the Rosenborg ticket – so it only cost an extra kr30 instead of kr100 – good discount!

The Amalienborg Palace has a display of the studies of 5 former kings, along with a collection of dresses from the late Queen Louise (I think), the current Queens mother. It was interesting to see, but we were glad we got the discount!

From here we wandered back to Stroget to meet Robert for lunch, and also meet his business partner,Arek. After lunch, we did some shopping, and then headed for a canal cruise. It was lovely cruising the harbour and canals for an hour in the sunshine. Unfortunately, Alison got a bit burnt, but it was good nonetheless.

After the cruise, we thought we had better see the Little Mermaid – it is such a touristy thing to do in Copenhagen! So off we went, and walked along the water to the mermaid. She was quite popular, and it took a little while to get a good photo, but eventually we did. It was lovely sitting out in the sunshine relaxing while we were waiting.

Eventually, we wandered back to the centre of town, and took the bus back to Robert & Ela’s, but not before walking almost in a circle. We thought we had seen a bus stop earlier in the day, that wasn’t too far away. Unfortunately it was a bit further than we thought and we ended up walking about 3 times as far as we needed to, only to see it leave the bus stop about 100m ahead of us! So we ended up walking back into the centre of town and had very sore feet and legs.

But we weren’t to have too much of a rest! After dinner, Ela and Robert took us on a bike ride to a nearby café. They couldn’t let us leave Denmark without riding somewhere, and it was a lovely evening. Luckily it wasn’t too far, but was a great way to see a bit more of the city. Im sure if we were there longer, we would have ridden a lot further!

(Alison)