October 1, 2019

The Journey Has Begun

The Journey Has Begun

I had the most wonderful friend offer to drive me to the airport so I could have a nice send off, rather than an Uber send off. It was such a kind gesture and I was so thankful for her most generous offer!

I made it through the airport security in record time. It’s a totally new setup, a human didn’t even take my luggage from me, it was self serve and scanned the barcode on my luggage tag! So I’m just sitting around, and not near my gate because it was down in a smaller section and then I decide to go over and I get there and they are announcing the last boarding call whilst I’m getting the last few drops of pee out in the bathroom (TMI?!). I was like woah it’s only 6:45, the plane takes off at 7:20 and it was delayed a bit. Anyway, I made it and I know why they call it so early, as I have never ever been on a ramp to a plane that long before. I kid you not it had to be half a kilometre long!

Because no one actually wants to read about my flight, I’ll say one more thing before I get to the good bits, Copenhagen! I ended up having someone beside me as the flight sold out in the last few days of me watching it. Cool, it is what it is. Well, this guy decided he was going to manspread – THE ENTIRE FLIGHT. Now I know I’m not a small human, and let me tell you I was nervous getting on the plane this year, and it was not due to the fact that I’m bigger if that’s what you’re thinking. This guy’s knee, at times, was almost halfway into my seat. I tried to push against him as he slept and he just did not get the hint. Not once. So I just used his knee as my own knee rest. The only downside to that was that he twitched in his sleep just like my dog Zoey does. Needless to say, I had about 2.5 hours of sleep on the plane, coming off of a 4 hour sleep the night before. So I landed in Copenhagen running on 6.5 hours of sleep in 36 hours! 

I miraculously made it to the Metro. I shouldn’t say that, most signs are also in English so it’s a fairly easy city to get around (sort of!). And to my utter delight (yes delight and no I’m not a millenial) the carrier I wanted to use, LycaMobile was just setting up their station at the entrance to the Metro, which allowed me to not have to find a 7-11 to do it. The guy set it all up for me too. So for $60 Canadian (my carrier here wanted to charge me an additional $12 per day to use the data I was already paying for) I got 200gb of data to use in Denmark when I’m there, PLUS thanks to it being an EU country, data roaming in all other EU countries is free, and I can use 9.75gb of my 200gb in those countries! All but Russia I should have full service, and my cool Danish phone number! So friends, if you’re trying to reach me, Whatsapp, Instagram and FB Messenger are the way to go! What’s even more cool is that because we’re for the most part sailing closer to land (hello Baltic Sea!) I should get cell service each evening when I return from port! I know I should be disconnecting but how else would I be writing and posting this right now for you all if I didn’t have it! Plus, with 200gb in Denmark I can watch as many Netlflix shows as I want when I return! 

Ok so now that I’ve totally bored you to death with airplane stories and data stories (mind you the data story is SO useful and applies to ANY EU country, get a SIM if you’re travelling over here at a fraction of the cost of Canada!) let’s get on to the trip. 

Having landed at 8:40am, my room wasn’t going to be ready until 3pm. 3 PM! So I went anyway and left my luggage with them and set out to try and enjoy the day. I haven’t been as planned on this trip, so no spreadsheet itineraries for me this time, which feels so strange! It will be done before I get back to Copenhagen and before each port. Thank you Rick Steves and a day at sea to help me out with that!

Copenhagen Town Centre and City Hall

I looked up what museums were free in Copenhagen. I’m very used to travelling in Europe where a lot of museums are free to enter, so it was a bit of a surprise that they not too long ago changed it and started charging for most museums, which is fine as I’d always give a small donation anyway so I can contribute but also stretch my dollar. Having arrived on a Tuesday there was one museum that was free – the Glyptoteket.

What do you ask is the Glyptoteket? Why it’s the museum found by Carl Jacobsen. Who is Carl Jacobsen you ask? None other than the founder and creator of the brewery Carlsberg. And it’s great that I got to go to this museum as sadly Carlsberg’s amazing visitor centre is closed for all of 2019. No ponies and beer for me. But, this museum is his (basically) private collection he’s obtained over the years. Towards the end of his life, he realized that he wanted to create a building that had living art for living people. He gifted his entire collection to the public (funded by profits of the brewery) and even built the building it’s housed in with three prominent Danish architects. My favourite part of the architecture was the domed Winter Garden in the centre which was so bright and full of light and so magnificent looking. It was built all the way back in 1906 by Vilhelm Dahlerupin.

Part of the draw for me to the museum was that it houses the largest collection of French art in Denmark! I had recently gone to the AGO this year and I’ve realized that I like the Impressionism era and some of its painters. So the chance to see works by Manet, Degas, Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Van Gogh, Picasso and Pissarro (yes, all in one room!) was magnificent. And seriously, magnificient it was. There were maybe 50 paintings in total, and I could have spent forever staring at them, but I was crunched for time as I knew I had a 2pm walking tour booked. Below are a few of the art pieces that caught my eye in admiration.

  • Degas 1880s
  • Pissarro 1901
  • van Gogh 1889
  • Monet 1882
  • Monet 1871
  • Picasso 1901

The second most important collection I wanted to have a perusal through? The Egyptian collection of course. I have been fascinated by Egypt since I was younger and the chance to see anything Egyptian is something that I always jump at! This collection did not disappoint and was far more vast than I imagined it would be. It was four separate rooms and they even had a mummy (and obviously Coffin) room! I was giddy with excitement wishing I could read hieroglyphs. Below are just a few of the things that I saw at the exhibit. 

With the little bit of remaining time that I had, I decided to see some Danish sculptures (as the Danish art was temporarily closed due to the special exhibit that was there). I’m not really a sculpture kind of person, but this was magical. They all seemed to glitter in the light and the detail was remarkable. I saw sculptures by Degas, Rodin, Bissen and Carpeaux. I saw the Shade, which to me looked like an early version of Beyonce’s all the single ladies dance! Below are a few of the sculptures I was able to look at!

  • Talk to the hand…I don’t have one…
  • All the single ladies…

After the museum, I booted it back to the main square to duck into Starbucks, yes, Starbucks for a super quick sandwich and a tea before my tour started. In fairness, it was that, 7-11, KFC or Burger King to choose from, so I feel I made the right choice! I had gone with Sandeman’s walking tour before in Amsterdam so I knew it would be a good one here as well. I like doing them as sometimes you can meet some people to travel and do things with (and I did on this tour too!) and then it gives you a good intro to the city with some facts and history. 

The most important thing to know about Copenhagen is that parts of it have burned three times over the years, back when homes were made of timber. So some of the main buildings have had to be rebuilt, but even then that was hundreds of years ago. There are a few small pockets that remain and our guide took us to a few of them. I can’t wait to go back and explore more in depth. So much so I didn’t even take a few of the most iconic shots yet, those are to come, you’ll have to wait! 

City hall square has a lot bigger city feel than I thought it would! But city hall (this is the 5th city hall!) is stunning and modelled after Italian architecture. There’s even a polar bear on top of it, my absolute favourite! That’s because Denmark actually also includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands. So the polar bear represents them as well. From there we went down the longest pedestrian street in Europe, Stroget. It was only pedestrianized in the 1960s but it was at the forefront of pedestrianization of streets! At the other end we made it to what was city hall number 4. In front of that was the stone grass area you see below where they would execute criminals in the town square. 

Me in front of the Prince’s Palace

We made it to Amalienborg Palace, which is the royal palace just in time for the changing of the guard! What’s so cool about this royal palace (or palaces I should say) is that you can walk around them and they aren’t gated in like most of them. There’s also 4! One for the Queen, one for each of her sons and a guest palace. Can you imagine? It’s not I have an extra room for you, it’s an I have an extra palace for you! One of the two Princes was in residence when we were there as the flag was flying on his palace.  

Changing of the Guard

The tour ended at 4pm and at this point I’d been walking around since 11am and I was 2.5 km from my hotel! I walked back refusing to take public transportation. By the time I got near my hotel it became clear I was crashing hard from my travels and so dinner was courtesy of Netto, a grocery store. They had Hobnobs. For my UK friends, I was delighted. For all other friends, it’s sort of like an oatmeal/digestive biscuit dipped in chocolate on one side. 

After a super long day I crawled into bed and fell into the most amazing sleep! On to the Norwegian Getaway tomorrow! 

Filed Under: Copenhagen, Europe, My Travel Posts
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