This morning’s wake up call came early at 6:00 AM. However, my internal wake up call came at about 5:30 AM, I suppose that was due to thinking about getting off of the ship, and all of the things we needed to do this morning. I was able to upload some pictures to the web site photo albums while I was waiting for the wake-up call to come through. We still had some internet minutes left, so I though it would be a good idea to use them, and was hoping that the internet would be faster at this time of morning.
After the wake-up call came through, I got in the shower and let Stephanie sleep as long as possible. Our plan was to be off of the ship by 8:00 AM. After showering, I went down to the International Cafe to get our usual breakfast of Yogurt, and a couple of extra items while Stephanie got ready. It is just easier than fighting the crowd at the buffet since most everyone was more than likely up early to get off of the ship.
We packed the last items in the suitcases, and were ready to go at about 7:20 AM, well ahead of our schedule. Part of the worry about getting off early was the potential to have a lot of traffic at the port with the four cruise ships there this morning. We had a little trouble, as usual for disembarkation, in getting an elevator down to Deck 4, where they were letting the passengers off of the ship. There is only one set of elevators in the middle of the ship that go that far down, all of the elevators in the stern and bow only go down to Deck 5, with stairs going down to the Deck 4 areas to get off the ship in ports other than for Disembarkation. When everyone has suitcases, you can’t get many passengers and their suitcases on an elevator before it is full.
When we finally made it down to Deck 4, there was no line and we just walked off of the ship. There is no formal Customs in Denmark either, and so we just walked through the small terminal out to where the taxis were waiting. It is so nice not to have all of the hassle of customs, which for some reason, the USA is about the only country that actually has this awful practice. We did not even have to go through any formal immigration check, it was so easy and fast.
We walked outside to the the taxi waiting area and got a taxi for the ride to the hotel. We gave the driver the address, and headed out of the port. The estimated taxi fare to the hotel was supposed to be 220 DKK, DKK standing for Denmark Krones. Just for information, for future posts on our spending DKK’s, the current exchange rate is about 6.5 DKK to the US Dollar. We had already found out that the taxis will take credit cards for the fare, which was good because we had no Krones, and there was no ATM machine at the port building.
Our First View of Nyhavn
We got to the hotel in about 15 minutes, arriving about 7:45 AM, and were surprised that the taxi fare was only 140 DKK, probably due to the fact there was no traffic that early on a Sunday morning, and we did not incur any additional fare for waiting in traffic. There had not been much traffic leaving the port either, so I guess we had made it out before most of the passengers on any of the other ships, which had our goal for leaving early.
We knew that there was not much possibility we could check in early at the hotel because we had sent an email from the ship telling the hotel that we would arrive early, and asking if they had a secured storage area for our luggage, which they did. When we got inside the hotel they informed us that the hotel was full, so we would have to wait for our room to be vacated, and then cleaned. The suggested checking back at around 1:00 PM.
While we were at the hotel we went ahead and bought two Copenhagen Cards, which are good for free admission to many of the sights in and around Copenhagen, and for all public transportation, even train rides for certain distances outside of the city. We purchased two cards good for 72 hours, and this will be sufficient to also cover the metro ride to the airport when we leave. We has listed the sights we wanted to visit, along with their costs before we left, and it did not take very many admission costs to more than pay for the card, excluding the transportation portion, which was included.
Rosenborg Castle
We dropped off our locked suitcases in the small lobby area, and headed out into Copenhagen after consulting the map the hotel provided us and some of the information we had brought from research we had done on the sights and attractions. There was hardly anyone out on the streets at 8:30 AM on a Sunday morning, which was nice.
We decided to first head to the Rosenborg Castle, just a few block away. There is also a large park around the Castle, and there were quite a few people jogging and walking dogs in the park when we arrived. We were not quite sure what time the castle opened, and when we got to the park and found the entrance, it showed that the castle opened at 10:00 AM.
Park Around Rosenborg Castle
We had a little over an hour to wait before it opened, so we decided to walk around the area. We also needed to find a bank so we could get some Krones for spending money. There was some type of military parade practice going on beside the castle in the portion of the grounds that is still a military guard unit, so we headed over there to see what it was about. Stephanie asked one of the several men going inside the guarded entrance, and he informed us that he had been in this guard unit, and today was a reunion for all of the past servicemen. There was going to be a parade later on in the morning with all of the returning members.
The Round Tower
Next, we walked toward another section of town that turned out to be a shopping area. Of course, nothing was open yet. There were a few churches along the way, and we did find the Rundetarrn, or “Round Tower”, which is also one of the attractions on the Copenhagen Card that we can visit.
We headed back over to the Rosenborg Castle, and just wandered around the beautiful gardens, waiting for the castle to open. At 10:00 AM, they opened the gates and we headed to the ticket office. We were not sure if we just used our cards to get in, or had to use them to get a ticket.
Wooden Music Box Inside the Rosenbrg Castle
We found out that we needed to use the cards to obtain a ticket, just like purchasing one without the card, except there was no charge. We also found out that we could not take in our backpacks, and had to pay to store them in a locker.
Of course, we had not yet stopped at a bank, so we had no money. Luckily, we could use an ATM card to get the tokens for the locker, so we did at the cost of 40 DKK. We had not really wanted to check our bags because we were still carrying all of our valuables, and I had my camera bag full of equipment. We also did not want to leave these at the hotel, we felt more secure with them on our person. It was either check the bags or come back later, so we checked them into two lockers, stuffing them inside.
Inside the Rosenborg Castle
We headed to the castle for the self guided tour. This castle was built by Christain IV in the early 1600’s. It is also the home of the crown jewels for the royal family. The tour of the castle was nice, they allow photography, even using a flash. There were three levels in the castle that we visited, and there were items there from several of the past monarchs.
Royal Crown In The Treasury
In the basement was the treasury, and it housed a lot of ivory items, ornate weapons and glassware. Also in the basement area, which we determined later was not really under the building, were the crown jewels, behind massive steel vault doors. The jewels were amazing. There were crowns, and lots of decorative necklaces with all types of jewels and diamonds. We really enjoyed that part of the tour. We returned to get our backpacks out of the locker, and found out that when you unlock them, your 20 DKK coin is returned, so there was no cost to use the locker, I guess it was just a deposit for the key.
Beautiful Emerald Necklace
Next, we headed over to the Round Tower, which was built in 1637-1642, also by Christian IV. It was built as part of a church. The purpose of the tower was for both an astronomical observatory, and as a student church and library. The tower is 39 meters high, and for a long time after it was built, it was the tallest structure in Copenhagen. On the inside, there is a spiraling ramp, and you just walk around and around and around, and around some more until you get to the top, and head outside onto a platform. There are good views, but it is certainly not the tallest tower in town anymore.
Stephanie Climbing The Round Tower Ramps
By the time we finished at the Round Tower, it was close to 1:00 PM, so we headed back to the Hotel Bethel to check to see if our room was ready. We were happy that it was, and we grabbed our luggage from the lobby area storage and headed up to our room on the first floor, which in this hotel is really the second floor, and probably about another half floor higher because there are about a floors worth of steps to climb from the street just to get to the lobby, which is the ground floor.
Our Hotel Room
More than anything, we were ready to get rid of all of the weight we were carrying in Stephanie’s backpack, and in my entire camera/computer backpack, both of which were quite heavy. It was a great ans tiring workout carrying all of this weight up the tower, and during all of the walking we had done so far this morning.
The room was nice, it had great views of the Nyhavn Area from all of the windows in the corner room, and also had a small balcony on two sides, accessible from a door. We were a little worried about street noise and sleeping at night since we were not that far from street level, but otherwise, it was just fine. After converting our backpacks to lighter versions for normal walking around, we headed back out to find some lunch. We headed over to an area where we could board the Canal Tours Boats for a one hour tour of Copenhagen from the canals, included in our Copenhagen Card. Near the ticket office, we found a eatery called WokOn, and split a freshly prepared noodle, chicken, cashews and broccoli stir fry. We also had a diet Coke, all for the low price of about $20, or 135 DKK.
Canal Boat Tour
After we ate, we boarded our boat for the canal tour of Copenhagen. It was really nice, but a little chilly in the exposed areas. The water in the canals seems to be fresh water, but somewhere in the main harbor, it must transition to slat water at the harbor where we could see our cruise ship parked.
The guide made some comment about the purity of the water, and that it was filtered, but we were not sure that was true. However, we did see some marine plants, and it looked like they were fresh water plants, not salt water. This may be a river near town and in all of the surrounding canals that eventually changes over to salt water.
Ski Slope Under Construction
We saw a lot of the historic and famous areas of Copenhagen from the boat tour, which gave us a flavor of what we might want to try and see tomorrow. Of particular interest was that they are building a ski slope over the top of one of their power plants, which will be for skiing in the winter and mountain biking in the summer.
The Church of Our Savior
After the boat tour, we headed to the metro station to ride across the main river to the Church of Our Savior, which is famous for having a spiral staircase on the outside of the steeple. Using our Copenhagen Cards, we entered the church and began the long climb to the top of the steeple. The initial floors are inside, but are still spiral staircases, and they get narrower as you go upward. About half way to the top, you exit to the outside and climb up the spiral staircase on the outside of the steeple, about 400 steps. There is a handrail/fence, but that is all between you and the bottom.
The views were great with the clear, but breezy weather conditions. We could still see all four of the cruise ships still in port. The only problem with the climb was that this staircase on the outside also had steps that kept getting narrower and narrower as you climbed, so at one point, you had to wait for other visitors to come down before you could go up.
Stephanie Climbing The Exterior Staircase
It took a while, but we finally got to the top, or at least just a few steps from the top. The steps were only about 10 inches wide at the top, so we were too big to go up the last few. It was easier going back down until you had to re-enter the inside part of the steeple, where the steps were also very narrow and steep. Several people would go down, while others about two floors down waited, then they would have a group that came up.
There was no way to pass on the steps, they were too narrow and steep. We finally made it back to the bottom. It was probably the best views we will get of Copenhagen.
Going Down The Inside Of The Steeple
We rode the metro back to our side of the river, and found a shopping mall at the metro entrance. We had missed it going on the metro for the ride over to the Church Of Our Savior, we were concentrating too much on where to go on the metro since it was our first ride. Inside the bottom floor was a grocery store, and several eateries, something like a fancy food court.
We were tired, and did not think we were up for going out to dinner at a restaurant tonight, so we got some sandwiches from one of the sandwich shops, and a large diet coke from the grocery. We ate at a small bar beside the sandwich shop. It was really nice, they had several stations that had three different charger cords, Apple, Android, and something else that you could use to charge your electronic devices. This city is really electronically connected, you can use your phones for almost everything including buying transportation tickets, metro and train schedules, and payment of purchases.
Nyhavn In The Evening
We walked around the Nyhavn area a little longer and headed back to the Hotel. It was about 7:30 PM and we were tired from all of the walking and climbing we had done today. We sat in the breakfast area in the hotel lobby and had a cup of tea. It had been sunny all day, but was cooler and windier in the late afternoon, so we wanted something warm to drink.
We have a full day planned tomorrow, so we called it a night and went up to our room to relax.
The picture of tulips encourages me to plant some for next year, even though they only are good for 1 year here because it is not cold enough
Miss you. Small is eating well for me. Love, Mom