Tuesday, May 27, 2014 - Copenhagen (Mark)

We wanted to get an early start to our day since we planned to do a lot. The first item of business was to grab our Copenhagen cards at the visitors' center at 9 AM. We then made a beeline to the Church of Our Lady where the original Christus statue is located. We made it there shortly before a huge group of cruise shippers arrived - glad we made it when we did. The church also features statues of the apostles, with Matthias instead of Judas Iscariot.

...probably.

Next was our boat tour, and we were on the first boat of the day. The tour was a very pleasant ride through the city's waterways. It gave us a good overview of most of the things we would be seeing. We also passed by the Little Mermaid statue, a lifelong dream of Liz's.

Yum! Yum!

The royal ship

After that, it was time for some real fun: Tivoli! Tivoli is one of the world's oldest amusement parks. We started by just enjoying the atmosphere, but we also each got to ride on the wooden roller coaster, celebrating its centennial this year. We got some "low fat" burgers for lunch and let Claire chase the birds around.

After a break in the hotel, it was time for the afternoon leg of our day. First up was Rosenborg castle. We knew we were going to have to make out visits timely, since everything in Copenhagen closes at an unreasonably early time. The castle was beautiful inside and out, and the rooms were very ornate and detailed. There was a treasury below where the crown jewels were kept. We spent a little time on the grounds afterward. Claire enjoyed looking at the waterfowl (especially the swans). the castle must be located near a university, given the number of young people hanging out on the grounds.

Gold digger

Aww, they have the same smile!

We stopped by the Round Tower, which gave us a great view of the city. The top of the tower holds Europe's oldest functioning astronomy observatory (but unfortunately the observatory was closed.) It was also easy to climb with a stroller, since most of it was a spiral ramp rather than a staircase. Inside, you can glance down the center of the tower and get a dizzying look at how high you are. We let Claire crawl around at the top - her pants were disgustingly dirty when we left.

The round tower got its name because it is a tower.

We rode the metro to the aquarium in the Kastrup next. It's kind of isolated and there weren't many there. We found out why: it was closing 15 minutes after we arrived. We thought it was open until 9 but that is only on Mondays. They let us in. The aquarium is the most ambient I've ever seen, with atmospheric lighting, large tanks, and underwater sounds playing in the speakers. Pity we only had 15 minutes to enjoy it. We may come back tomorrow, but probably not. Discouraged from traveling all the way out here, we fed Claire and decided to call it a day.

Observations:
-Copenhagen is one of the most under-construction cities I've seen, and that's saying something. It seems every street has part of it blocked off for new bike lanes or a metro station or utilities work or whatever. Even the existing metro required us to change trains at Oresund because they were working on the platforms.