Copenhagen 5/31/05
This is a fairy tale land. Literally. I'm in the land of Hans Christian Andersen.
Otherwise known as Copenhagen! Can I just tell you how charming and adorable
it is??? There are parts that seem a bit like a bigger city but then so much of it is
just beautiful architecture, awesome colors and great squares (just for
pedestrians).
I arrived yesterday morning straight from my overnight train. Got a good night of
sleep so all was well upon arriving. One thing I forgot to mention in the last
email was that when I saw that sunset from the plane the other day, that sunset
was occurring at 10pm. The sunrise woke me up on the train ride both days at
around 4:30am. Such is the life over here. This morning I was wide awake at
5am and tonight I was completely blown away that it was still light out...yet it
was 10pm.
With such long days, there is lots of time to do and see stuff! Today we bought
the Copenhagen card and let´s just say that Michelle didn't disappoint to get
every possible thing out of it that we could! We saw a museum that had a few
rooms of impressionism (Degas, Renoir, Monet, etc.), took a tour of the Royal
Palace, went to the top of a tower for some nice Copenhagen views, went to see
the ruins of an old castle, saw the grounds of another palace, saw ´The Little
Mermaid´ that is a statue in the water that is, for some reason, very well-known
over here, went to Tivoli Gardens both during the day to see the flowers and at
night to see the shows and fireworks, we went to Nyhavn (an area that is on a
canal and has really colorful buildings), we went to City Hall to see one of the
most accurate clocks in the world--yes, we really did do this---please do not ask,
and we went and saw another thing or two just as exciting as the clock outing.
I´ll refrain from sharing. But as great as some of these things were, they do not
even compare to the Danish pastries that they have over here!!!! I have found
my favorite spot and have literally had one of my favorite desserts of all-time
(and you better believe that there is A LOT of competition in that category!!!)
and the dessert I had today was one of my favorite desserts that I've probably
had this year (obviously, a close second to the one I had the day before). I could
go on and on and talk about the caramel mousse that was in one of the
desserts...but I won´t.
In any case, there are so many buildings around here that are just so charming
that you can´t help but know exactly why one of the most famous fairy tale
authors is from here.
Tomorrow we are off to a couple different towns to see a couple of castles. One
of them was Hamlet´s. The other one is supposed to be totally beautiful. Looking
forward to these. A nice change of pace from being in the city going from site to
site to site.
Until then...
:) Jen