Equally Impressive.....

There is a poster at Copenhagen airport alleging that every day in this city cyclists ride a combined total of in excess of 1.3 million kilometres  on over 350 kilometres of cycle ways which seems an incredible number. However you only need to see the number of bikes parked around the city and the endless stream of cyclists of all ages moving sedately along the cycle lanes to realise that it certainly is no exaggeration, and they move along in a very orderly way obeying the traffic signals and giving their own hand signals.

We retired last night rather early having been awake, other than for approximately 5 hours napping on the plane, for just over 48 hours - to say we were shattered rather understates how we felt, but hey there are no complaints.

Sleep came rather easily and lasted well into the morning and after a relaxing breakfast we hit the streets.

First impressions of Copenhagen apart from the cycling is a city that has been around for sometime and the owners of the buildings that front every road have skimped on maintenance, at least in the areas we walked on our first day. However today we ventured further into and around the central city and the environment was rather more impressive, nice in fact. Another impression is that the cost of living might well be high - 2 cups of coffee cost approximately $16 being double what we would pay in NZ. Also the price of meat at a high street butcher was rather mouth watering, enough I would suggest to ensure you became vegetarian! 

 

Pork chops 25kr/100gms which equates to approximately $60/kg Eye fillet was around $150/kg and the humble sausage $34/kg!       

   Centrum was a real buzz of people doing much like we were, looking at the sights, a lot of window shopping and watching other people. 

  And at this point in writing the blog for reasons I can’t fathom the technology has let me down and won’t allow me to load any photos - whether I can solve it going forward is problematical. 

 We walked up Stroget, a long pedestrian mall of various class of shops, however it is the premier street for shopping in this city, coming out into Radhuspladsen which is dominated by the City Hall & across Hans Christian Andersen’s Boulevard is Tivoli, an amusement park. 

 On the floor of Radhuspladsen is a aerial view of the city and we were able to pick out some of the landmarks.

 I did have a thought - I wonder how far you have to go from the centre of Copenhagen until you strike a hill as the place is as flat as. 

 Back down Stroget and following the canals we passed Christiansborg Palace and continuing along with the water on our right we arrived at Nyhaven, a very touristy area but one which because of the coloured buildings has become the public relation photo for Copenhagen.   

  As we were in the vicinity we continued along to Amalienborg the home of the Danish Royal family. The palace is in fact four buildings set around a square but they don’t give off a Buckingham Palace vibe, in fact for royalty they are very understated.

 After stopping for a coffee, or perhaps to rest legs that were by now lacking somewhat in energy we started the amble up through Centrum and along Nørrebrogade to our accommodation which is around 3kms from Centrum.

 A rest, if one calls sitting down for 10 or so minutes, and then we were back out to a restaurant for dinner. 

 After dinner I gingerly joined the throngs and went for a 20 minute bike ride - I never passed anyone but was swamped time and time again by the masses, even by a child riding along with dad. I have excuses however as the bike, which comes with apartment, is poorly maintained, the gears won’t change and the brakes were almost nonexistent. And so finished our day. 

 As I write this it is 9.00 pm however it is still daylight outside and will be so for around another hour - "white night" we have heard it referred to as - and then daylight is around 4.30am at this time of the year so if one likes daylight then this is one of the places to be.