Day 14 - Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen

With just two full days in Copenhagen (possibly an oversight on my part), I was determined to make the most of every minute. All the more so as I had made the decision to get a 48 hour Copenhagen pass - for anyone who remembers the story of Mum and I in NYC determinedly making the most out of our CityPass, I have gone for a similar vibe here. This might be a long blog entry.

So, I started the day with a canal tour. It was great to see so much of the city from the water and I learned lots. I particularly enjoyed the fact that you can rent a green kayak for free if you do litter picking at the same time! To be fair, the water was very clean.

Also a fun fact, in the fourth photo above, you can see an incinerator. It is just steam coming out the top, but that same building also has a dry ski slope and a climbing wall on it!

Post canal tour, my next stop was Nyhavn - the pretty houses that are on all the Copenhagen guidebooks. They are very pretty, and I had an excellent milkshake from an ice-cream shop there.

I was (obviously) picking up lots of geocaches as I was walking around, and it was in Nyhavn where I ended up talking to a Danish family and introducing them to geocaching!

My next stop was Amalienborg, where I went into the palace and learnt all about the history of the Danish royal family. It was quite an impressive building! Meg would approve of the library.

Despite having seen The Little Mermaid from the boat tour, I felt I had to walk to see her from her best side, even if I already knew her to be somewhat underwhelming. The walk was worth it for the cafe where I sat and watched a water-plane take off. And for the caches. And the required photos….

It was then a short trip on the (very nice!) metro and half an hour back at my hotel for a rest and a recharge of both my and my phone’s battery. Amazingly, Tivoli Gardens, the city centre theme park, is a mere five minutes walk from my hotel, so I was soon on my way there for the late afternoon and evening.

Tivoli is AMAZING. It is the park that Walt Disney was inspired by, and you can definitely see the similarities. I started my time in the park with a ride on the Milky Way Express - a fast-ish family friendly coaster.

Next up was a Hans Christian Anderson inspired ride - ‘The Flying Trunks’ - before I decided it was time to up the ante with ‘The Demon’ coaster. This was a bit more hard core with three loops and lots of inversions.

It was time for a dinner break after that (there are lovely restaurants and food outlets in the park). I was joined for my dinner by a peacock, which was an interesting development!

After dinner, I went straight to ‘The Roller Coaster’ - the third oldest coaster in the world; so old, in fact, that each train has a brake man/woman on board! It was a LOT of fun - think Big Thunder Mountain, but older!

Next up was ‘The Mine’ - an underground tracked boat ride, weirdly featuring mole characters. I didn’t entirely get it; but it was fun!

My plan was to then go on ‘The Star Flyer’ next - an iconic 80 metre high swing carousel! Annoyingly, it was temporarily halted when I got there, leading to me looking into other rides. It was ‘The Star Flyer’ that I wanted though, so I went back in hope of it reopening, which thankfully it had. Unfortunately, however, it was touch-and-go whether I would make it on before closing. The ride operator closed the queue after me, and it was not looking good when the penultimate ride of the day were going in. I asked the staff member if there were any single seats anywhere on that ride, and she found me a seat with a friendly German guy - hooray!

It was totally worth it - the views were stunning.

The reason the rides were closing just before 10pm was because there was a rock concert in the park. I did have to google TV-2, but apparently they are a big deal; in fact, possibly the most commercially successful Danish band ever! I asked ChatGPT for which British band would be the kind-of equivalent; and it reckoned either The Beautiful South or Madness.

Although my Danish was not good enough for me to really join in the singing with the thousands of others (and I did use some of the concert to write this!), it was well worth staying for the incredible vibe and experience. My parkrun time in the morning might not thank me for my late night, but I have no regrets. What a day!