Saturday morning came with the arrival of my BFF Debbie, who had just flown a transatlantic flight to meet me. Debbie and I go waaaay back. Try 25 years! In the last couple of years, we began the tradition of doing an annual reunion at some exotic locale. Last year, she came to visit me in Cairo. This year we did the Baltic cruise. We began dubbing these madcap adventures as the Laverne and Shirley trips. LOL.
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| Me, Deb and Hans Christian Andersen! |
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| Hop On Hop Off Bus |
Without even stopping to take a breather, Deb insisted that we began our exploration of the city. She was determined to catch up to my 24 hour head start! We got a 2-day pass for the Hop On Hop Off City Sightseeing bus, and started seeing Copenhagen's major attractions. It was the best way to get around the city, because a Hop On Hop Off bus came around every 15 min.
One of the things we had to do was to see the changing of the guards at Amalienborg Palace at noon. Amalienborg Palace was the royal monarchy's winter palace, and it also served as the center hub for paliament, as government buildings shared the courtyard square with the royal family.
Afterwards, Debbie and I headed to the harbor to get our bearings on where we were to board our cruise ship the next day. While there we saw the site of where the Little Mermaid statue used to be (the statue was on loan to China until Oct), and we also saw this beautiful angel statue looking out to the harbor. It was erected after WWII in honor of all the Danish sailors that died at sea during the war. 
Next we explored Nyhavn St, which was a "rainbow row" of waterfront shops and eateries, as well as a busy thoroughfare for canal boat tours. 
Debbie and I especially liked the front of this building as it purposely attempted to grow a floral front.
There were so many bicycles in Denmark! It reminded us so much of Amsterdam. Scandanavians were definite proponents of this mode of transportation. 
Then we discovered "The Stroget" (which means "street" in Danish), the longest pedestrian walk in Europe, and is THE shopping zone of Copenhagen. Throngs of tourists crowded around street performers, and milled around the shops and cafes' found abundantly there.
Not too far away from The Stroget was a Saturday flea market we discovered. Bonus! It had a variety of odds n' ends that interested me, particularly these antique Danish tiles.
We finished out the day with a fantastic dinner show at the Musik Hall that was premiering "SMILE," a rock medley of musicals such as Caberet, Hair, etc. It was very entertaining, and we were pleased with the day's adventures! We didn't have to board the ship until 6pm the next day, so we had another fun day in Copenhagen. So, stay tune! 
