A Long Day's Journey

Today is Sunday, a day in which almost everything in Copenhagen is closed except the zoo. So instead of sitting around on our butts all day, a bunch of us took a hike around the city. Since I am prone to do such things, I plotted our trip on Google Maps when we got back. You can check it out here (click on "My Maps" and then select "Day Two Trip").

We started out walking towards the city, and checked out whatever shops were on the way. The only grocery store that seems to be open was Fakta, although a lot of the shops and small restaurants that appear to be run by immigrants were open as well as a number of pastry shops with fancy window displays. I also came to the conclusion that there must be some kind of law that dictates the height of buildings since almost every building seems to have five stories. We made it to the Rådhuspladsen (pladsen seems to translate as something like 'plaza'), which is not surprisingly located in front of the Rådhus, the City Hall. This area is often considered to be the center of Copenhagen.

From there we proceeded to walk up the Strøget which is a long pedestrian street known for its shopping and restaurants, something like Nicollet Mall but a hundred times cooler. We stopped at a coffee and pastry shop, and did a fair amount of window shopping before passing through some plazas with many fountains and statues before coming out near Slotsholmen, an island which has several castles and important government buildings on it, including the Christiansborg Palace (home of the Danish parliament), the Danish Royal Library, and the Børsen (the stock exchange), among others. Slotsholmen also has the ruins of two older castles which you can tour. Around this point we picked up one of our dorm mates Sergiy, who was walking around by himself.

At this point we had reached the large canal known as Kobenhavns Havn, which sounds really funny if you say it quickly. We followed the harbor to the northeast until we hit Nyhavn, which is usually considered one of Copenhagen's top tourist spots and for good reason. It really is a photographer's dream, complete with a beautiful canal, gorgeous multicolored buildings, boats, outdoor restaurants, pretty much everything you could want including a gigantic anchor located at near Kongens Nytorv.

We then headed off northeast, passing a number of embassies before we came to Amalienborg Slot, which is a series of four palaces which all face towards the center of an octagonal plaza. In the middle of the plaza lies a big statue of Frederik V. Although not as famous as the guards at Buckingham Palace, you can see the Royal Guard stand guard when the royal family is at home, although we did not catch the changing of the guard. In one castle Queen Margrethe and her Prince Consort Henrik live, and another is home to Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary.

From there we headed north again towards the Kastellet, a old fortification located on an octagonal island. We passed by the Frihedsmuseet (the Museum of the Danish Resistance, a WWII memorial) and the Gefionspringvandet, a large fountain depicting the Norse goddess Gefyon. We first walked along the Langelinie Pavillonen before coming across the infamous Little Mermaid statue, which I have confirmed is an embarrassment to most Danes. We then did something of a U-Turn and came back down through Kastellet itself, and past through what appeared to be a series of old barracks that have been converted to new uses.

We came out and started to head back to the Norreport Metro station, and passed through streets that brought us past the Marmokirken and the world famous smørrebrød shop Ida Davidsen. Finally we passed through Rosenborg Have and Rosenborg Slot (seriously guys, why don't you build another castle?) before hopping on the metro to go home for some grub and a well earned rest from our seven hour journey.