The travels of Tim and Megan: Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen

On Friday night we bolted from work slightly early and made our way to our favourite place in London, Heathrow. Our arrival in Copenhagen was fantastic. The airport was completely empty, which meant that it took 10 minutes to get from the plane, through immigration and collect our bags! Our hotel's location right next to the central train station also meant that we were at our hotel less than an hour after landing...impressive.

We rose early on Saturday and enjoyed some Danish pastries (who'd have thought?!) for breakfast at our hotel before setting off to explore the city. It is pretty chilly in Copenhagen this time of year and the temperatures hovered around freezing point the whole weekend. Copenhagen is not a city bursting with tourist attractions, especially given that the Tivoli Gardens (massive amusement park in the middle of beautiful gardens with restaurants, cafes, bars and shops scattered around) was closed for the winter months. But it is a very pretty city.

We wandered the streets checking out some of the shops and marvelling at the many statues and beautiful buildings. We eventually made our way to the church in the middle of the town and climbed up the spiral tower to take in the views of the city. Luckily it was a clear day so we could see the huge Oresund Bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden in the distance (see photo below). The bridge/tunnel is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe at 7.8km.

More wandering led us to a big ice rink in the middle of town, where loads of people were showing off all of their tricks. After our mediocre performance on the ice in Geneva, we decided to give it a miss this time around. However we sat and watched the skaters while we sampled the Copenhagen hot dogs we had heard so much about. They certainly were tasty dogs, almost as good as the ones in Prague!

We took a one boat cruise around the harbour and canals of Copenhagen in the bizarre looking flat-topped boat shown in the photo below. We later discovered it had to be that flat to get under some of the very low bridges in the canals! It was an interesting tour. We went past Copenhagen's "biggest tourist attraction" - the little mermaid statue (which, interestingly, has been the subject of several attacks, including a decapitation...crazy old Danes), the new Royal Opera House and through the canals of the "Little Amsterdam" district of Copenhagen.

Next stop was the Guinness World Records museum. Tim discovered he has a long way to go before becoming the tallest man in the world (see picture below). Robert Wadlow of Illinois, USA, was the tallest man in the world at a touch over 8 foot 11 inches... We were also big fans of the life size replicas of the fattest man in the world and also the "metal-eating man".

"Michael Lotito of France is known as Monsieur Mangetout, Mr. Eat-It-All. For reasons unclear, he began eating small amounts of glass and metal at age nine. Over the course of his lifetime he has consumed seven television sets, six chandeliers, a computer, 18 bicycles, 15 supermarket carts, two beds, a pair of skis, a coffin, and a Cessna airplane." Awesome.

After all that excitement, we needed a drink. Luckily we stumbled across an Irish pub near our hotel that was screening live FA Cup football. Sadly an injury-hit Arsenal got hammered by Manchester United. Oh well. We noticed that Denmark is an expensive place, probably the most expensive European country we have visited. Our drinks in the pub and food at cafes and restaurants was quite pricey, much more so than in London!

On Sunday we put our walking shoes on and braved the icy winds coming in off the harbour as we walked right through the city and down to the little mermaid statue. She is a little over-hyped. But a swarm of Japanese tourists would beg to differ. We had to wait a good 5 minutes while they took about 50,000 photos of her, before we could get a look in. Our walk took us past the Royal Palaces - there are four almost identical palaces built in a square all facing inwards to a big courtyard with a statue in the centre of it. It seems that the Danish Queen moves about between these four palaces regularly...quite odd.

As most of the shops were closed on Sunday, we checked out another church (this one was circular!), explored another museum, bought some local Danish chocolates at a supermarket, had a hot chocolate in a cafe (Copenhagen is very much a cafe and bar kind of city!), and then found ourselves back in a pub sipping a Sunday afternoon Guinness.

Our flight back to Heathrow was going far too smoothly when we landed about 10 minutes early. It was too good to be true, as we then sat on the runway for 40 minutes while the ever-efficient Heathrow staff tried to find us a gate to park at. Surprisingly, the queue at Immigration was fairly short and Tim made a new friend at Immigration:

The Immigration officer asked the stupid question of "What will you be doing in the UK?" - (loads of things, you muppet).
Tim replied, "I'm living here".
She checked his passport and sneered, "No, you're on a working holiday visa".
Tim: "Yes, which means I'm living here for two years."
Officer: "No, you're a visitor here."
Tim: "Call it what you like, but I am here for two years."
Officer: "The definitions are quite different."
Tim: "Shall we go through the definitions then?"
Officer: [angrily stamps passport] "No I don't have time."
Tim: "Thanks."

Welcome back to friendly efficient London!!!