Copenhagen - Day 1

Hello, from Copenhagen, Denmark! Bruce and I have only been here 8 hours but we already feel like this is a home away from home. We love this town. Unfortunately, Bruce is passed out on the bed in our hotel room after being awake for 30 straight hours. I don't know why I don't have jet lag. It's 7:30pm Copenhagen time so if I go to sleep at regular time tonight, I should be on track. Neither one of us slept on the plane at all. (Seattle to New York/JFK airport, then to Copenhagen).  We just didn't feel tired and then when we landed and took the train into town, we couldn't wait to head out and see all the sights, even though it was like 3:00am for us. Whatever. It's my first time to Europe and I don't want to waste any time. We checked into our hotel, which is super cute, by the way...

and very "organic"

with a spa feel to it.  A perfect place to stay after a long travel day. 

We decided to start our first afternoon in Copenhagen by walking through the old town and then make our way to a canal cruise.  Our hotel is 2 blocks from the main train station which is very convenient and with lots of shops and eateries; a nice central point. 

From there, you can pretty much walk to everything.  I thought a canal cruise would be nice and relaxing today because of our jet lag and Bruce and I actually did start to nod off a little during the 1 hour cruise. It was a beautiful day, the sunshine felt good; a perfect time to be out on the water.  

Our boat looked like this one.

They are very low because they have to go under many low, narrow bridges.

Copenhagen has a huge harbor (there were two cruise ships in today) with many little canals that branch off from that.  This tour was a good orientation for us so we know where we want to go and spend more time.

We loved all the beautiful, colorful, historic canal houses everywhere.

And yet, Copenhagen has modern architecture that we also cruised by that showed it's contemporary side like the glassy Royal Danish Theater Playhouse.

Walking to the canal cruise we passed by the Christiansborg Palace, Parliament Building, and Supreme Court.

Walking back from the canal cruise, we strolled down the Stroget, a charming pedestrian street.

It started out as an experiment shopping mall of no cars in 1962 and became tremendously successful. Now, it consists of lively streets and lovely squares 

throughout the old town from City Hall 

to the Nyhavn (New Harbor) Quarter, where the canals are.  We just loved it.  And then back at the main train station, we ended up across the street from the Tivoli Gardens, 20 acres of the world's oldest amusement park dating back to 1843.

Two blocks from this, we were back at our hotel after a quick afternoon orientation to Copenhagen.  But before we went back to our hotel, we decided we were getting a little hungry so we stopped to have a popular Danish food called a Polse or Danish hot dog.

Bruce said it was the best hot dog he ever had!  They were the perfect texture and a slight hint of spiciness like a sausage but not as much. The condiments were fresh and high quality.  I got "grilled onions" on mine but they were more like little crunchy onion rings. So yummy, better than fries!  Bruce got fresh, sweet, red onions and we both had "pickles" on them but not like the pickles in America.  They were more like thinly, sliced cucumbers that were pickled. I just wanted to pick out all my condiments and eat them by themselves!  Usually, Polse are bought off a little sausage wagon on the street corner

but we wanted to sit down after all our walking so we went into a nice little grill restaurant called Andersen Bakery.  They had lots of "Danish" there, too - of course.

Here in Denmark, these kind of pastries are called wienerbrod or "Vienna bread" named for the Viennese bakers who brought the art of pastry making to Denmark.  You see these pastries everywhere, even in 7- Eleven stores, which are everywhere here.  Guess what our breakfast will be tomorrow?  The other thing you see everywhere in Copenhagen are bicycles. There are more bicycles than cars!  

They have their own lanes, of course, which are not in the street but next to the sidewalk.

They are incredible and we are just amazed at the number of bicycles everywhere.  We loved our first day in Copenhagen.  Tomorrow, Bruce has work in Sweden so we will take the train across the Oresund Bridge into Sweden and spend the next 4 days in Lund, Sweden.  After that, we plan to return to Copenhagen to spend 2 more days here.  Now that we are oriented to the town, we've had a taste of Copenhagen and I can't wait to spend more time here. Back at our cozy, quaint hotel, we relaxed in the lobby, taking in all our adventures of today and agreed this was a good start to our trip.