Bob:

Ordinarily, getting to bed late is not a huge problem if we can sleep in the next day a bit, but as it turned out we had to catch a 9:50 a.m. flight to Copenhagen so we had to get up shortly after 6 a.m. to have breakfast, finish our packing, and make our flight. Heinke and Gustl very nicely drove us to the airport, without which help we would have very likely been to late for our flight, and we had a very nice, albeit quite short (35 minutes) flight to Copenhagen.

The sun was just starting to peek through the clouds as we boarded the small regional jet used by SAS for the short hop from Hamburg to Copenhagen, and the weather held fine for the entire flight. Since the trip is so short, our aircraft never ascended above 15,000 feet or so as best I could guess, with the result that using the 10x zoom on my camera I could almost always take a picture of something interesting through the window, which generally doesn't happen on airplane flights. Leaving Hamburg, we passed over the green, checkerboard pattern of fields in the area of Schleswig-Holstein that borders Hamburg to the North, and then flew over parts of the Baltic Sea to the islands of Denmark.

Monika:

Bob:

Denmark has connected all its major islands with bridges to facilitate road traffic, and in fact we had just heard on the news that the Danish government was going to pay for 90% of the costs of constructing a bridge from one of the islands to Germany, a straight currently served by a train and car ferry. Germany is just paying for the connecting roads on German soil, so the actual bridge will be all Danish construction, but when it is finished you will be able to drive directly from Hamburg to Copenhagen across the major islands in the archipelago without having to take a ferry at all.

Once out over the Baltic Sea we turned Northwards toward Copenhagen and we were low enough that I clearly saw sailboats and freighters plying the seas below us. I was surprised, however, to see fields of windmills not only on land, which I had expected, but also in the water just off the Danish coast near Copenhagen. I hadn't realized that the windmill farms had been successfully established in the sea yet, but there they were and obviously functioning. It must be a tough battle to keep electric generators operating with the salt water corrosion and the furious sea storms that occasionally whip up the waters of the Baltic Sea, but apparently those problems have been overcome.

Monika:

Bob:

After landing and retrieving our luggage, we bought a 10-trip train pass for 2 zones for the equivalent of $33, and used two of those trips to ride a very nice intercity electric train into downtown Copenhagen. The roadbed was, by American standards at least, amazingly smooth and the train glided along like on silk rather than rattling and banging along like a typical Amtrak train on the neglected American rail network. Quite a contrast! At the main train station in Copenhagen, we transferred over to their metro system and were again pleasantly surprised. Compared to other metro systems I have seen, these metro train cars were especially wide in the middle. The extra width gave us a real feeling of spaciousness and allowed for two sets that would carry 3 persons each plus a central aisle across the width of the train car.

One thing that puzzled me, though, was the division of our car into three zones completely separated by glass partitions. As best I could figure out, one zone prohibited dogs and smoking, one zone allowed dogs but no smoking, and one zone allowed both dogs and smoking. We were in the middle zone and didn't smoke and didn't have a dog, so we were OK as far as I could tell, but I was curious about the rationale for those divisions. Not sure what happens to cat or parrot owners, though.

In well under an hour's time we were at Osterport, where we found our Comfort Hotel right across the street from the train station. The advantage of the hotel was that it was conveniently located right next to the train station; the disadvantage of the hotel was that the hotel rooms were located right next to the train tracks! I mean we could almost lean out of our window and shake hands with the folks on the nearest track. It reminded me of the old Kingston Trio song about the MTA where Charley gets stuck on the train because he can't afford the fare increase and his wife hands him sandwiches through the window every day as his train passes through the station! Oh well, as Monika said, it was only for one night. After venturing out to buy rolls, meat, cheese, milk, and beer for lunch, we rested a bit before exploring the neighborhood.

Monika:

Bob:

Our hotel was also conveniently located next to the Kastellet, an old star-shaped fort built in the 1600s complete with a moat around it. These days, of course, the fort serves only as an administrative headquarters for the military, or something like that, but they had some old cannons scattered around on the jogging trail that runs around the top of the old fortress wall. I was surprised to find, however, an old windmill situated on the fort grounds and I rather wondered what the story behind that was.

From the ramparts we had nice overviews of the surrounding neighborhoods, a nearby church, and of course the harbor area that the fort had originally been built to protect. I think this was also the site of Nelson's victory in the battle of Copenhagen, but I'm not really sure and clearly the Danes did not put up any markers or commemorative statues for that defeat. We did find a statue for the Danish hero in some battle for Helgoland, which changed hands among the Danes, Germans, and British several times over the last centuries, and one of the past Kings of Denmark on the inevitable horse.

Monika:

Bob:

From the fort we walked over to the Little Mermaid statue, a symbol of Copenhagen courtesy of Hans Christian Andersen's stories, and turned North toward a yacht basin that looked out over the cruise ship docks further downstream. Just in front of us, the National Geographic's ship Endeavor was very slowly putting out from port, and an NCL ship, the Norwegian Jewel, was also pirouetting around and steaming slowly out to sea.

Monika:

Bob:

Retracing our steps to the South, we continued on past a nice fountain that personifies the old Norse myth that the island where Copenhagen lies was scooped out of central Sweden by three brothers that had been turned into oxen for the task by their sister, I think. From there we continued past some smartly-dressed but quite bored looking guards at the Amalienborg Castle, the official residence of the Queen, and curled back past the Marmorkirche (marble church).

Almost back at our hotel, we passed row upon row of one-story rowhouses that looked surprisingly shabby and unkempt. We were both surprised by that as this appeared to be a prime area for real estate development in downtown Copenhagen, and these row houses looked more like slums. However, they were consistent slums in that they were all painted the same shade of faded and peeling ochre-yellow, they all had the same old decayed wooden shutters, and they even all had the same kinds of little window ventilation fans. The best Monika and I could surmise was that these were historical buildings now being used by the Danes as public housing, but that's really just a guess as we could not find any sign explaining the origin or status of the residential complex.

Back at home, we had a reprise of lunch for dinner as the sun set over the railroad tracks behind us, and then settled in for the night. I updated my journal while Monika read a book, but we were both so tired that we turned in early.

Monika: