We arrived in Copenhagen on our second day with a long time to explore.We decided to follow the method we had taken in brussels and cologne of navigating unknown cities using tall buildings and spires. Unfortunately this method wasn't that useful in Copenhagen as there were next to no tall buildings, and hundreds of spires!
We'd head towards what we thought was a church we had spotted earlier, and find that it was actually a parliament building, museum or another church! We eventually picked up a rough guide to Copenhagen and headed north towards an old barracks in the hope of finding the statue of The Little Mermaid, based on the story by Hans Christian Anderson.
The original story is a bit different to the disney version; although it does include a prince and the mermaid falling in love with him, her changing into a human thanks to a sorceress, she dies of cold in the harbour after failing to make the prince fall in love with her.
The statue was surrounded by tourists taking photos of her, some even braving the slippery rocks to stand next to her to have their photo taken with the tragic figure.
Copenhagen is a city steeped in so much history, and seemingly containing so many historic buildings and royal residences that we were only able to scratch the surface of what the city had to offer. Luckily though we were able, later on in the trip, to spend a day exploring the city a bit more.
One thing we did come across which is worthy of comment, is that on our way to ind the little mermaid and the barracks, we discovered an interesting sport. In what we supposed to be the old part of town due to its abundance of tradition-style buildings, cobbled roads and wooden boats, was a small rectangular harbour where sounds of wood being hit against wood could be heard.
As we went towards the waters edge where a large crown had gathered we discovered a circle of men in wetsuits floating in the river hitting a small wooden barrel with a stick. The barrel was suspended from the bow of a boat so it was some form of Piñata, which we found was not filled with sweets or keepsakes, but with inflated balloons! We're not sure whether the barrel and balloons were significant, if there is any historical reason for playing this game while floating in a river, but it was certainly entertaining and drew a largish crowd (most of whom seemed to be english!)
We realised we were hungry at this point so we halted our search for the little mermaid and went into an old and danish-looking pub for some fishy dishes, of which there were many to choose from! There was a small translation error with Marylise's order when she chose the three fish baguette thinking that you chose one of the three fish listed, but it didn't matter in the end as it was all really good food.
We didn't spend the night in Copenhagen, but journeyed to our fourth country, Sweden, and stayed in a youth hostel in Malmo. Supposedly Malmo has a reputation for being one of the roughest of the cities in Sweden, but we found it quite typical of a scandinavian city. This was our first night in a hostel, and it was quite plush.We had a 4-bed room to ourselves, the beds were very soft and we were able to have a shower! This was also the hostel with the best kitchen, which was about the same size as the eating area, which is probably overkill but allowed three groups to cook at once, something we were to wish for later on!
After a good nights sleep, we continued on our journey to Norway.
The original story is a bit different to the disney version; although it does include a prince and the mermaid falling in love with him, her changing into a human thanks to a sorceress, she dies of cold in the harbour after failing to make the prince fall in love with her.
The statue was surrounded by tourists taking photos of her, some even braving the slippery rocks to stand next to her to have their photo taken with the tragic figure.
Copenhagen is a city steeped in so much history, and seemingly containing so many historic buildings and royal residences that we were only able to scratch the surface of what the city had to offer. Luckily though we were able, later on in the trip, to spend a day exploring the city a bit more.One thing we did come across which is worthy of comment, is that on our way to ind the little mermaid and the barracks, we discovered an interesting sport. In what we supposed to be the old part of town due to its abundance of tradition-style buildings, cobbled roads and wooden boats, was a small rectangular harbour where sounds of wood being hit against wood could be heard.
As we went towards the waters edge where a large crown had gathered we discovered a circle of men in wetsuits floating in the river hitting a small wooden barrel with a stick. The barrel was suspended from the bow of a boat so it was some form of Piñata, which we found was not filled with sweets or keepsakes, but with inflated balloons! We're not sure whether the barrel and balloons were significant, if there is any historical reason for playing this game while floating in a river, but it was certainly entertaining and drew a largish crowd (most of whom seemed to be english!)
We realised we were hungry at this point so we halted our search for the little mermaid and went into an old and danish-looking pub for some fishy dishes, of which there were many to choose from! There was a small translation error with Marylise's order when she chose the three fish baguette thinking that you chose one of the three fish listed, but it didn't matter in the end as it was all really good food.We didn't spend the night in Copenhagen, but journeyed to our fourth country, Sweden, and stayed in a youth hostel in Malmo. Supposedly Malmo has a reputation for being one of the roughest of the cities in Sweden, but we found it quite typical of a scandinavian city. This was our first night in a hostel, and it was quite plush.We had a 4-bed room to ourselves, the beds were very soft and we were able to have a shower! This was also the hostel with the best kitchen, which was about the same size as the eating area, which is probably overkill but allowed three groups to cook at once, something we were to wish for later on!
After a good nights sleep, we continued on our journey to Norway.
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