Sunday 12th May Copenhagen

Our day started with a tour of Copenhagen. Our guide Claus, met us at the hotel before we all boarded our coach. Our first stop was the famous “Little Mermaid” statue situated in the water of Copenhagen Harbour. There were many tourists there and to be honest she was a little underwhelming. We later learnt that she had been voted the 2nd most disappointing tourist attraction in the world only coming runner up to the “little boy” statue in Brussels. She also had her head sawn off in the 1960’s and it had never been found and so replaced by another one. To this day the original head has never been found. Claus was a fountain of knowledge as to the intriguing history of Copenhagen and Denmark. Being such a small, flat and island based country, over several hundred years there had been many wars and it was difficult to keep up with the changes to the borders and who owned what. What we did learn was that Denmark had a good navy and it was the navy that could defend it when needed. We visited many other interesting places and went walking to various places of historical importance. Of course we were all interested in the Royal Palace where King Frederick, Queen Mary and their children live and we were taken there. The area has 4 identical buildings which face each other and the royal family live in one of them. They were not there today as the flag was not flying. Various other family members live in the other 3 palaces. We enjoyed walking and learning about the older parts of Copenhagen with our guide. His knowledge was extensive and he was able to answer our questions. Compared to Norway where 82% of their cars are electric, Denmark has only 12%. Claus explained that it was because it was far too expensive to buy electric cars at the moment in Denmark. We returned to our hotel for lunch and then Rob and I returned to the canals and the old part of the city, navigating the Metro again successfully, to take a Copenhagen Grand Canal Tour. This cruise took us to some of the sights we had visited before like the Little Mermaid, the Opera House etc. but it was so interesting seeing all these places from the water. The weather was just superb and being a Sunday and Mother’s Day here as it was in Australia, tourists and Copenhagen families were out everywhere enjoying it.





























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