Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea... (Song by Danny Kaye)

We were supposed to land at 7:15, and actually landed about 10:35. B carried both carry-ons. As we got off the plane, there were several guys standing there and I announced that my name was Beasley, and a young blond guy walked down the gangway with me. As we got to the wheelchairs (they wouldn't let them on the gangway) the wheelchair he was going to take was grabbed by an elderly woman who said she needed it. So we took another one. He wheeled me through customs and immigration. No one has asked me for B's permission so far. [On the seven trips I have taken with grandchildren, I was only asked for my permission once and that was on the first trip when we were changing planes in Heathrow]

Then he figured out which luggage carousel we would be at and said it would be 15 minutes, so in the meantime both B and I changed some money. The wheelchair driver and the exchange booth person both assured me that I didn't need to tip in Denmark - that people had already been paid.

I decided I didn't have the stamina to take the train into town (schlep the bags, find the train, buy tickets, get on the train, get off the train and find the hotel). So we got a taxi, which cost 380 Dk (Danish kroner). There are a little more than 5 kroner to $1.00

Taking a taxi from the airport

There was some kind of convention in town on the dates we were there, and the only hotel room we could get except for a hostel was in the Saga Hotel. It is very conveniently located near the train station and Tivoli in an area with a lot of other hotels.The taxi driver had never heard of the Saga Hotel, and the map and address was (again) in the trunk of the cab in my carry-on. I said it was near the railway station and Tivoli. So he got us there and said to me "Where do you think it is? " And I said, "Probably it's around that corner", and we turned the corner and there it was. He said "How did you know that", and I said I didn't know, but I thought I remembered on the map that was where it was. He said I must be a genius, and I said no that I just liked maps. He thought that was funny. He had to back down the street as it was one way towards us. He warned us that we should keep our cameras and money well concealed in this neighborhood, but the neighborhood seems to be a mini-Chinatown and doesn't feel spooky at all. Although I did see a Sex Shop on the way in. We were checked in before noon and B took a shower and soaked her foot.

The room has two twin beds with duvets,

Bed after I took a nap

a flat screen TV locked to the wall,

and a window out onto the courtyard

My granddaughter sitting on the windowsill

which had two fiberglass cows in it,

Fiberglass cows

and also bikes which we could have rented from the hotel.

Hotel bikes in the courtyard

Flowers in the courtyard of our hotel

Selfie in the bathroom mirror

We had a private bath. Since it was cold and rainy while we were there we didn't need A/C. There were no elevators, but our room was on the first floor and was quiet as it was on the courtyard. We walked up to the second floor to get breakfast. The charge on my credit card was $167/night for two people with a private bath and breakfast

The receptionist told us that we could use the computer in the lobby for free, but that if we used the LAN cable in the room or on the the computer keyboard through the TV it would cost extra.

Keyboard in the room that we would have paid for

I tried to log on from the lobby without success, and finally used their computer to send a message to B's parents that we had arrived safely. The hotel receptionist told me that the hotel wi-fi was sagareception, and really it was Saga reception. Once I got logged on, I could get it from the room, although if I didn't send stuff right away the wi-fi apparently lost interest in me and told me that I wasn't connected to the internet. Incidentally the hotel computer keyboard had the @ sign on a key in the third position which I never could figure out how to get to it. For email addresses, I always had to find one somewhere and copy it.

They have a lot of PPV movies etc on the TV. What I mean by that was that the menu on the TV tended to come up on the PPV area. They do have some US movies and sitcoms with Danish subtitles. We could also sometimes get the Danish news and weather.

After I sent the email, I joined B in a nap, and about 1500, we went out to try to find the HOHO (hop on hop off) bus.

Side of the RR station

Railroad station

Hard Rock

When we were trying to find it, we came to this square. I thought the memorial was a War Memorial. Actually it is the Liberty Memorial which is kind of the opposite. It celebrates the end of adscription. Adscription is another name for serfdom. That's what the translation from the Danish comes up with. Under adscription, farmers and workers had to stay on the land where they were born and work without pay for the estate holder. They couldn't leave without the permission of the landowners.

The Liberty Memorial

In England serfdom died out between the 14th and 17th centuries. in Finland, Norway and Sweden it was never fully established but in the Austrian empire it lasted until 1781, in France until 1789, in Russia until 1861. In Denmark it was in effect from 1733 to 1788 and in its subsidiary Iceland from 1490 to 1894.

The Liberty Memorial was erected in 1797 on Vesterbrogade opposite the Grand Central Station (which we also saw as it was quite near our hotel). At that time, it was far outside the city walls. Prince Frederik – later King Frederik VI laid the foundation stone in 1792 (five years earlier) as a symbolic gesture to commemorate the end of adscription in 1788.

Statues at the base

The Liberty Monument itself was a gift to the city from reformers to honor King Christian VII for his agricultural reforms. The Liberty Memorial itself has four figures which symbolize Fidelity – Justice – Virtue and Courage. The monument was created by sculptor Nicolai Abildgaard.

I also took photos of the Zodiac statues in Axeltorv Square which is across from Tivoli where we waited for the bus. It is named for Bishop Absalon, Copenhagen's founder, whose (little used) Danish name was Axel. A 12.5 metre long water basin with nine bronze amphoras was installed in the square in 1991. It was designed by Mogens Møller in collaboration with the architect Mogens Breyen and is called Zodiac

Zodiac statues

Zodiac statues - Axeltorv Square

By the time we found the bus stop which was opposite the Tivoli Gardens main entrance

Front entrance from across the street

Main entrance

My granddaughter at the bus stop

it was 1630 and was the last bus of the evening. I also knew that it was too late for the last of the hop-on hop-off boats because they stop at 1615. Because of the weather the buses have rain tops in place on the upper decks. The driver didn't want to cash our vouchers because he said we wouldn't get the full benefit. Although I had bought a two day ticket . Adult internet rate $20.95 each

Bus logo

From the Mermaid tour

When it came, it was so full that there were no seats. Someone gave me a seat and B stood until a lot of people got off at the cruise ship docks

Celebrity Constellation

Then we both got to sit in a seat and listen to the commentary.

plugs for earphones for commentary

When we got to the Mermaid,

People getting off in the rain to photograph her

From the top of the sightseeing bus

B got off to take photos of her - I didn't. Everyone knows the Little Mermaid and it is one of the things one must do in Copenhagen. We saw it in 1950 and my dad took a photo.

Little Mermaid in 1950

B's photo in 2009 from a slightly different angle

She is somewhat remote from the normal tourist routes.

The Hans Christian Anderson story is a bit bloodthirsty and not so romantic as you might imagine. It isn't the Disney version. The mermaid gives up her life in the sea, her voice, and her identity as a mermaid to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince. When she walks or dances it feels like she is walking on sharp swords, and her feet bleed most terribly.

Tail

When the prince marries someone else, the mermaid's sisters bring her a knife and tell her that if she slays the prince with the knife and lets his blood drip on her feet, she will become a mermaid again, all her suffering will end and she will live out her full life. But she can't do it.

Head (which she has lost a couple of times)

.

Little Mermaid

It was cold, damp and windy and I was OK, but B was cold. (I found out later that she had packed for June in SC with a lot of shorts, and summer here is quite a bit colder.) We came to a KFC and Burger King (there are Burger Kings, 7-11s and McDonalds on every corner).

7-11

Burger King and KFC

Danish BK menu

B had a really small

Crispy burger 33.00 Dk with mashed potatoes

I had

A twister (61.00 Dk)

also with mashed potatoes and gravy. She had a coke and I had what was billed as a lemonade but was (UGH) carbonated (like in England). We managed after some difficulty (asking directions 3 or 4 times - fortunately the hotel gave us a map with the hotel marked on it) to find our way back to our hotel which is on a very back street.

My granddaughte chasing pigeons in the Town Square

My granddaughter chasing the pigeons

B went to sleep, but she had the controller for the TV so I went to bed with the TV on. She woke up sometime during the night and found the controller which had slipped down behind her bed and turned it off.

Tomorrow we will get back on the HOHO bus