September 14th, 2008: Returning to Copenhagen, Denmark
Bob: Awakening at 6:00 after a quite decent night's sleep, I was so anxious to get up and watch our ship arrive in Copenhagen that I just couldn't get back to sleep. As Monika couldn't get back to sleep either, we both threw on some clothes, had a final breakfast on board, and then headed up to Decks 10 and 11 to watch our approach into the harbor. Outside the harbor we saw the row of windmills I had noted when we landed at Copenhagen airport over a week back, but this time I saw what appeared to be a power generating plant right behind them.
These lights were extremely high intensity lights mounted on the left and right side of the channel some distance back from the entrance. The lights blinked quite slowly but were so bright that we could clearly see them against a morning sky. As we edged into the gap I checked my supposition that the lights were highly directional beams by walking from one side Deck 11 to the other, and sure enough I could only see the right-hand light when I was on the right side of the deck, and only see the left-hand light when I was on the left side. It was simple, yet effective, and reminded me of the Visual Approach Slope Indicators (VASIs) using to guide landings in aviation.. |
Monika: We woke up early. Since we were essentially packed, we decided to go up on deck, have breakfast and watch the ship steam into Copenhagen. It was interesting watching the pilot navigate the rather narrow entrance to the harbor. It seemed that there were two rather strong lights that guided his way, since they were directional and we were always right in the middle. |
Bob: Our ship was rotating around to back into its dock at the cruise ship pier, which is a few miles North of the old central part of Copenhagen, but as we were rotating I could get a good look down into the harbor at the dome of the church next to the Royal Palace. Even further back into the "old harbor" section of Copenhagen, I saw spires of churches and I suspected that they marked the old central district that we had not yet had a chance to visit.
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Monika: Around 7:30 we decided to vacate our cabin, so Dennis could get it ready for the next guests. We went down to the Casanova lounge on deck 2 and found a table close to an outlet in the adjoining card room where we had had so much fun painting masks, boxes, and T-shirts. Thus settled, I starting catching up on my writing, since I had been missing out on writing during our first week. I had been talking or working with Heinke, while Bob wrote. So now was the time to buckle down. Of course, I peeked at Bob's write-ups to remember what the heck we had done every day. |
Bob: Around 11:00 the "black" luggage labels were finally called and we trooped downstairs to check out one last time, gather up our luggage, and roll off into the sunset. Actually, we just rolled our luggage about 3 blocks over to the Nordhavn train station, took the next train two stops to the South to Norreport, and then transferred to the city metro line for two stops to the East to reach Christianshavn. The metro was, by the way, interesting because it was completely automatic, no driver at all. We sat in the front car and had a big picture window looking out into the tracks in the tunnel ahead, which was fun. Shuffling around with the luggage slowed us up quite a bit, but we still made it to our bed and breakfast at 12B Dronningensgade within an hour. I lugged the luggage up two flights of narrow, rickety stairs and then we set off to find an ATM machine to get cash to pay our landlady and buy some food for lunch and dinner. Fortunately the little market square just down the block had a bank with an ATM machine, a really good bakery, and a 7-11 of all things. I found it quite incongruous that in Copenhagen Denmark I was shopping in a 7-11 with drug-themed rap music blaring in my ears. Why do we export the very worst parts of our U.S. culture? Anyway, we finally got the money and the food, paid our bill, and settled in for lunch back in our room. |
Monika: Since we were walk-off guests, we were the last ones called. While writing and waiting, I went back up to get a last cup of coffee and a glass of orange juice for Bob. We finally got our call, collected our luggage, and trundled off to the nearest S-tog station, which was only 15 minutes of easy walking. We navigated the S-tog and transferred correctly to the ultramodern Metro to reach the Christianshaven station. The station was in the middle of the street were our bed and breakfast was. So Bob stopped with the luggage while I checked house numbers to figure our whether we should be going to the left or the right. Our place was about two blocks from the station. At the house a neighbor was waiting for us to let us in and show us our room on the third floor. The house was a rennovated 18th century house and the stairs were narrow and steep. But our rooms were nice and we even had a little kitchenette with two burners, a sink, and a refrigerator.
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Bob: I had a slightly sore throat and was low on energy ever since St. Petersburg and really didn't feel like going out again, but the bright, sunny afternoon was too good to waste and I dragged myself back outside to at least walk around the local area. We walked to the canal past a church with a steep gold-covered spire and a staircase running around the spire on the outside, for heaven's sake, and continued on to the nearby canal, which was just chock-a-block with boats of all sizes and descriptions. In many places the boats were "double parked" along both sides of the canal, leaving just enough space for a boat to actually motor by in the middle. |
Monika: After lunch we set out to explore our surroundings. Rick Steve's guide had mentioned a hippie commune of Christiani and a church with a steeple where the staircase winds around on the outside. Since the steeple was easy to see, we went there first and admired it from the outside but decided against going up. We then went to the waterfront, to one of the canals. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, so everyone with a boat was out and enjoying themselves. |
Bob: A nice looking old yellow building beside the canal turned out to be an official Maritime Museum, and I felt up to that so we went in and looked at the exhibits for a couple of hours. We found a lot of very nice ship models covering the entire history of the Danish Navy from the age of sailing ships to the present time. The summaries and dioramas covered both Danish victories and defeats. I was amused, however, to find that the Battle of Copenhagen where Nelson defeated the Danish ships was labeled as "almost a draw" from the Danish point of view. Truly, if the Danes had been able to extract all their ships from winter storage things might have turned out differently, but that's war for you.
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Monika: To Bob's delight we found a Museum for the Royal Navy, in other words a Maritime Museum. This one did not look too big, and it closed at 4 PM and by now it was 2 PM. So we decided to go in. They had a special rate for retired people, so we even saved some money. The museum had a plethora of models of all kinds of ships. Big ships, little ships, construction models, etc. etc. There were only a few signs in English which helped us getting through in two hours, however, photography was allowed, which slowed us down. When one of the custodians came by at 4, we were actually done. Amazing. The story I liked best, was about a Danish naval hero from the beginning of the 18th century: at 18 he became a midshipman and 12 years later he was Vice-Admiral and shot in a duel. Wow, that's what I call a quick and short-lived career. |
Bob: They finally chased us out of the museum when it closed at 4:00 p.m., and we continued our preambulation around Christianshavn. We continued down the boat-choked canal and then curled back by way of Christiania, a part of the old Navy yard that was taken over by hippies in the 1971 and basically converted to no-rent communal living. Rick Steve's guide had mentioned it, so we wandered through to gain our own impressions. I couldn't fit in with the Hippie movement back in the 60s, and I guess now I'm too old and set in my ways to appreciate graffitti as art or to accept the heavy emphasis on drug use that still seems to be part of that subculture. In the main market area in the center of the commune, I walked around the booths hoping to find interesting or artistic handcrafts that I might like well enough to purchase and take home. The handcrafts were represented by maybe one-third or less of the 15 or so booths in that area, whereas drug paraphenalia was the main product in the other two-thirds.
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Monika: After leaving the museum, was mosied along the waterfront. The canal looked like a street in Chicago, not a space left to moor another boat. There were power boats, house boats, and sailing ships of all sizes and descriptions. The sun was shining and people were sitting on the boats or on a bench and enjoyed a Sunday afternoon. We finally came to the end of this island and walked around to the other side, were we found Christiani, immediately recognizable by colorful graffiti on every available wall. This really seemed to be a scene from the 60's. Painted shacks, small stores, outdoor cafes, and drug paraphenelia. When we finally left this enclave, we found a busker arguing with a gamester on who was here first. We both were happy to get back to a normal environment.
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