So, we now know why everybody bikes in this city. You might think it's because they are environmentally conscious, but no. Perhaps they are thrifty and wish to save money, but once again, no. Maybe they want the exercise. Possibly, but not really. The actual reason is simple - bikes are fast and convenient and with a bike lane on every street, they're also pretty safe. As well, there are minimal parking issues with bikes. We did however watch someone at a bike park start a domino effect, where the tipping of one bike dumped a good 20 others.
This is a beautiful city and for walkers like us, the entire core was totally walkable in a day.
Today our objective was to see the Tivoli Gardens and the Little Mermaid. They happen to be in opposite directions from our hotel, so we headed first through the core of the retail area towards Tivoli.
When we got to Tivoli, we were a little surprised to see a mini Canada's Wonderland in the middle of the city.
The grounds did consist of gardens, but there were many rides, some tamer than others, lots of arcades and tons of retaurants. As it turned out, one of the retaurants on the grounds was the Hard Rock Cafe, so we lunched there.
When lunch was finished, we asked the waitresses if we could walk from there to see the Little Mermaid. They emphatically told us it was too far, but after consulting a walking map at the tourist office, we decided it was doable. Did I mention it was a beautiful day?
So off we went, past the Copenhagen Cathedral,
though the King's Gardens with its Rosenborg Castle,
through the Copenhagen Citadel
and up to where the cruise ships were docked, where low and behold, our cruise ship, The Marina, was tied up,
and finally to the Little Mermaid.
She's not terribly large and if it wasn't for the crowds surrounding her from both onshore and offshore, you could almost miss her. But she certainly is an important part of Danish history.
From there, we walked mostly along the water back to our hotel, past the Amalienborg Castle which is the residence of the Danish royal family. We also passed a couple of modern buildings like the Opera and The Playhouse, as well as what appeared to be a small nautical exhibit of warships, including a beached submarine.
We'd left the hotel at 9:00 and by time we returned at 4:15, we'd clocked over 18000 steps - around 14 kilometres. Therefore, a mandatory rest period followed. Sounds like The Amazing Race.
After a bit of bubbly in our room, we wandered down Nyhavn around 7:00 pm to "cafe central" and chose a restaurant by availability of seats. This area is wall to wall people at night - actually all day as well.
The most amazing thing about being this far north at this time of year is the amount of light. The next picture was taken after 9:30 and even at 10:30 there was still significant light.
Tonight our heads were a lot clearer than last night, so we had some more bubbly back in the room and planned for our departure from Copenhagen tomorrow.
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