Denmark!!

I know...I've been slacking on posting. I'm skipping Russia because there is just so much to tell and so many pictures to sort out. So I'll get to that later. Today it's Denmark!

Copenhagen – the capital city of the kingdom of Denmark since 1417. Modern developments of the 20th century have been blended with the older buildings and monuments to form a beautiful and happy city. This is by far one of my most favorite places. We were traken on a bus tour of Pass the Town Hall Square, Tivoli Gardens, the New Carlsberg Glyptoteque, the National Museum, the Christiansborg Palace, home of the Danish parliament, the old Stock Exchange and the residence of the Royal Family – Amalienborg Palace. Just minutes away from the ship we stopped and saw the Little Mermaid statue – the world famous symbol of Copenhagen. Greg didn’t get out of the bus for this one. Something about see a little mermaid statue didn’t do much for him. I looked back at the bus a few times and he had his eye on me….he’s always so worried I’m going to run off and get lost. I can’t imagine why he thinks that….*chuckles*. Then ee actually stopped at the Amalienborg Palace and we both took a few pictures there. It wasn’t as grand as some of the other palaces we’d seen, but a palace no less. Our tour guide on this one was….well, she wasn’t as good as the others we’d had. Full of knowledge for sure, but there was just something about her that I didn’t really like. Not as pulled together as the other guides. We got to do some shopping at a tiny little store. ALL of us were in this store…it wasn’t a good plan to pick an area with one store for all of us to shop at. I was rushed because we didn’t have a lot of time there. I would have liked to have more time there and had more places to browse, but what can you do. After completing the tour of Copenhagen, we were off to the island of Amager where there is a beautiful little village called Dragør. In the early sixteenth century, King Christian II invited a group of farmers from the Netherlands to settle there to produce food for the royal household. Twenty-four families arrived and their descendants stayed for three centuries. Amongst their many other achievements, they were responsible for introducing the carrot to Denmark. We strolled around the cozy village dominated by yellow painted houses, red roofs, cobblestone streets and a charming harbor. I could live there. I know I’ve said that in almost every post, but really…this is a place I would move to. It was just so lovely. I didn’t get as many pictures as I would have liked to get there. The tour of Dragør wasn’t fast, but we didn’t stop much. If I had taken every picture I wanted, I would have dragged too far behind the group. The tour ended at the local cafe, where we were coffee and a danish. I ate it rather quickly and took off back the way we came hoping to get more pictures, but I quickly realized I was getting pretty far away from the café and if I didn’t get back, there would be another annoyed tour guide….remembering back to the Finland tour. We returned to the ship and did a little more shopping on the pier….thankfully. They had some nice shops there. We changed and the ship had a shuttle that would go back and forth to Tivoli Gardens, so we too advantage of that. Tivoli Gardens in the heart of Copenhagen and we could roam around and do whatever we wanted! I was so excited!! We ate dinner at The Hard Rock Café….of all places. We were nearly at the end of our vacation and I think we were starting to miss American food a little. The service was awful there and it was really expensive (my soda alone was $7), but it was good to eat a burger and fries. After dinner we headed over to Tivoli Gardens, which isn’t really a garden…well it is and it isn’t. They had some really beautiful plants and flowering trees, but mostly it’s an amusement park. We strolled around and then headed back to the ship. All in all…..this was my favorite port of all the ones we’d been to so far. Send me to live in Denmark for a year….I’d be on that in a flash.

And now for pictures! I'm sad to report we took the least amount of pictures here. Mostly because a lot of the tour was in the bus driving past things. It's okay...just means I have to go back! Copy and paste the following directly into your browser:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=14i88s9b.6lwrfvf&x=0&y=95opab