Canals and Karaoke

After spending all day studying, it was off to Nyhavn for a canal tour. While Copenhagen does not have canals of, say, Amsterdam or Venice they are nevertheless quite extensive. In fact, Christianshavn was actually modelled after Amsterdam when it was added by Christian IV. After a rainy morning, the sun was shining brightly by 6:30 so there was a big turnout for the tour. Of course, this made it hard to take photos in the direction of the sun but nobody was complaining.

Nobody was really sure where we went, in large part since sot the most part the only thing you could hear from the tour guide through the lousy speakers were reminders to sit down and/or keep your limbs inside the boat (that means you Meghann!). I think we started out by going through the Trangraven Kanal. After some briefing on the local real estate market, I believe we then passed through Københavns Havn, which I believe is the funniest sounding havn in all of København. Then it was back out into the Inderhavnen and headed north along the east bank past the new opera house.

After a while we turned around and made the requisite photo stop at the Little Mermaid statue and then headed back down the west bank passing such buildings as what appeared to be the A.P. Møller-Maersk headquarters and some old warehouses. Then it appears that we went back into the Trangraven Kanal but this time turned south into the Christianshavn Kanal. This stretch was the part that really felt like you were going through a postcard canal. The shores were filled with brightly colored buildings and friendly people. After passing under a bunch of bridges we crossed the Inderhavnen again and circled the Frederiksholms Kanal which goes around Slotsholmen, the island with Christiansborg, Det Kongelige Bibliotek (The Royal Library), the Børsen (stock exchange), and a number of other important buildings.

I have attempted to recreate our journey on Google maps (in red here), although my accuracy may be less than 100 percent.

Finally we landed back at Nyhavn and went our seperate ways. My little group went around and ended up at a karaoke bar called Sam's Bar, somewhere in the Strøget. After a Martha-Jeff duet of A Whole New World and an inspired Martha-Meghann rendition of Girl's Just Wanna Have Fun, (and some impromptu travel planning) we called it a night.