This morning, we hit the streets to do a walking tour of the old town of Copenhagen. The clouds were clearing up, although it was rather breezy and still not quite 60 F.
Our first stop was the square in front of city hall.
It was still fairly cool in the shade.
The attraction that brings in the big crowds is the statue of Hans Christian Andersen; there was a group of about 30 people each taking a turn posing.
We stepped inside city hall for a look around, starting with the Jens Olsen's World Clock.
The architecture was inspired by a building in Italy, but they had to add an additional layer of roof over the courtyard, due to local weather conditions.
We continued the walking tour, enjoying yet another beautiful day.
By now, it has become a daily habit to inspect the selection at a local bakery. It's not a surprise that the origin of the danish has excellent pastries.
This one from Lagkagehuset, in particular, is amazing. It's sort of like a twisty cinnamon roll filled with vanilla custard. They just call it "Danish Specialty".
After that light snack, we fought our way through the bicycle-clogged sidewalks, roughly following the walking tour path.
We often ended up walking in the street, because the sidewalks are an impassible wall of bikes.
The people riding bikes then get annoyed, and ring their bells at pedestrians to warn that they're about to get run over.
The guidebook asserted that we should feel free to explore any courtyards if we found an open door or gate, so we decided to test that theory.
We stopped briefly to see St. Peter's Church, the oldest building in central Copenhagen (from the 15th century).
Right around the corner, we peeked into the Church of Our Lady, possibly AKA the Copenhagen Cathedral?
Just across the street from there, we made a pit stop at the University of Copenhagen.
The doors were open, so we went in and had a look around.
Continuing our walking tour, we strolled through Gammeltorv (old market square)...
... stopping at the Caritas Well fountain so our tour guide could regale us with some information.
A block past that, we arrived at Nytorv (new market square).
It was only 11 AM, so the restaurants were still mostly vacant. All of thes squares turned into crowded chaos in the afternoon.
Throughout the morning, we weaved in and out of the Strøget pedestrian area, which is the main shopping street that cuts through the old center city.
Obviously, we had to go in the Lego store. Who could resist?
They have an impressive model of Nyhavn, which we had not yet seen in person.
There were a few less regionally-specific Lego sculptures, too.
Probably because Denmark home to Lego headquarters, they have a set that is exclusive to Denmark. (Hans Christian Andersen, naturally.) Or maybe they have exclusive sets in other countries? I don't know.
The courtyard exited onto Gråbrødretorv (friar's square?)
It was approaching lunchtime, and there was no metaphorical end in sight for our walking tour, so we doubled back a bit towards Helligåndskirken...
... to try this hot dog cart.
They take their hot dogs and/or sausages very seriously here.
After lightly lunching, we continued our tour of the squares at Amagertorv.
The impossible-to-miss Stork Fountain has some strange Wikipedia content, even by "pages about statues" standards.
From Amagertorv, the tower of Christiansborg Palace is visible in the distance. We waded through the sea of bicycles, across the bridge to Slotsholmen, headed for the current seat of parliament.
The plaza in front of the building is protected from vehicular attack by a fence of very large stone spheres.
It's also protected by this fierce statue of (King) Frederick VII.
Inside, signs indicated that it was possible to ascend (for free) to the top of the tower for a view of the city. As it's an active government building, this involved a security checkpoint, bag x-ray, metal detectors, etc.
The view was quite good, despite having to take two separate elevators and climb a bunch of stairs.
After absorbing the panorama of Copenhagen, we descended and de-elevated back to street level, and continued out the other side of the building.
This side of the palace is guarded by Christian IX. They really enjoy their equestrian statues, clearly.
The horse theme made a bit more sense when we learned that this area was/is the stables, currently home to several live horses.
Upon discovering that we couldn't quite get out of the castle in the direction that we wanted, we found a corner exit that was close enough and edged our way around the outside of the island.
It was an utterly perfect day for a boat tour, judging by how happy all of these people looked.
Either way, we ended up on the other side of the castle, in the bicycle parking lot, and then wound our way through a series of passages, heading towards the Royal Library.
Between the palace and the library, we found the incredible hidden oasis, creatively named the Royal Library Garden.
There is a tiny house for ducks to nest in, within the fountain. This is not unique to this park.
All of the trees and hedges, in keeping with the theme from the palace, had square edges and corners.
The plan had been to enter the Royal Library, directly from the garden, but that entrance was closed so we once again had to go out the side and work our way around to the front.
The modern front of the library was teaming with life; tables were full of students, the cafe was bustling, and the lobby was a mess of conference attendees wearing badges adorned with the Google logo.
We went up to the top floor for a quick aerial view of the atrium and the canal.
Outside, we paused for a snack, and to enjoy the view, before continuing our stroll around the castle island and crossing back to the mainland.
Despite looking like a descent into some random basement, I believe this was a legitimate business of some sort. I just can't remember what it was, exactly.
We strolled along the waterfront, enjoying the weather and the trampolines.
Our ultimate goal was Nyhavn, to see the Lego models in real life.
It was like we walked into a postcard, or a Hollywood set. This is the quintessential Copenhagen scene. (Do a Google image search for "Copenhagen".)
The waterfront cafes were packed full of tourists, mostly drinking beer or wine and watching the world go by.
At the head of the harbor, we boarded a canal boat for a tour around the waterways of Copenhagen.
The only non-negotiable rule seemed to be "stay seated while we go under the bridges".
In addition to navigating through the canals, the tour went out to the edge of Langelinie park, so we could see The Little Mermaid. Along the way, we saw the Opera House and the Holmen Naval Base.
The Little Mermaid statue looked like a wildly popular attraction, judging by the crowd around it on the shore, but we didn't deem it interesting enough to warrant any closer of a look than we got from the boat. I'm still not sure why it's so popular. (Also, it reminded us of the Girl in a Wetsuit sculpture that we saw last summer.)
The canals are choked with moored boats, making passage of the tour boat somewhat harrowing at times.
We caught a glimpse of the Church of Our Saviour in the distance; we didn't get a chance to go climb to the top, despite definitely wanting to tackle 400 additional stairs during our visit to this city.
One of the bridges was a very tight fit. The boat bounced off the of rubber bumpers on each side, as it barely slid through.
The tour guide narrated the entire thing in three different languages, and also sang some Elvis at one point. We're not sure why that happened.
At the end of the hour-long tour, the boat slowly puttered back into Nyhavn.
All of that walking and boat-touring had made me thirsty. I popped into a basement convenience store for an adult beverage. People must have been smaller when these buildings were constructed.
Having finished our walking tour, we returned to the apartment for a brief respite before dinner.
We ate dinner at several different places in the Torvehallerne market, then hopped on a train to head over to Tivoli for a few hours.
Tivoli is sort of a cross between a carnival and a park, with a bunch of restaurants and bars thrown in.
First, we did a lap around the park, just taking it all in. None of us were particularly interested in going on any of the rides, which were either aimed at a younger audience or had very long lines.
Their flagship roller coaster, Dæmonen, had an associated VR experience.
We wandered throughout the park, and stuck around long enough to see what it looked like when the lights were turned on.
Even as some of the restaurants were closing down, as it was after 9 at this point, others seemed to just starting to be crowded.
We left Tivoli around 10 PM, and walked back to the apartment. En route, we stumbled across a duo practicing their fire-twirling act in a plaza.
There isn't widespread public transit in central Copenhagen, and maybe not much demand since everyone rides bikes around? (They're building additional metro stations, however.) By the end of the day, my phone reported 28,000 steps and almost 11 miles walked.
It's been a very long day. Tomorrow, we're in for a change of pace.
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