We spent the first couple of days touring the city. We went to an art museum, botanical garden, saw a castle, and had a general walking tour of the city- saw the little mermaid, their new theater and opera house, the queen's palace, walked around an island that used to be used for defense purposes and was shaped like a turtle, distracted a cute dog with a name I couldn't pronounce, and popped through a Christmas market. After I got all the sight seeing out of my system, we kicked back for the rest of the week. I got to see Denmark as the Danes live- we went to a friend's house for dinner, did a bunch of Christmas shopping, saw a movie, and did the Danish Christmas thing.
The Little Mermaid is "the national symbol of Denmark." She is a pretty little thing sitting just off a walking path in the harbor, and attracts tourists and vandals- over the years she's had her head stolen a couple times, her arm stolen, various occasions and colors of paint dumped on her, and dressed up.
Carlsberg is the famous brewer of Denmark, and they have elephants on their building.
Mom and dad. They decorate cemeteries in Denmark almost as well as in Germany.
The wilderness! There were all sorts of ducks and geese and swans in this moat, surrounding the turtle-shaped defense island.
Everyone loves a windmill!
I love the colors of buildings, and all the boats in this canal. Off to the right are lights hung over a little Christmas market.
Botanical gardens! The building straight ahead is the green house, but there were a fair number of things to see and people walking about outside as well.
I don't think they could have squeezed more paintings into this room of the art museum. Note that the ceilings are VERY tall, many of those paintings are over 5 feet wide or tall.
A castle!! In the night time! Only, it was about 3:30 in the afternoon when I took this photo. Too far north.
In Europe, people walk around gardens even when it is cold. This was a particularly sunny day, though! :-)
We even found a peacock!!
And... a palace?
I love when little buildings like this spring up at you while on a quick walk somewhere. Little cute spots tucked away.
And, of course, we had to go to Tivoli!
They had fantastic Christmas lights up all over, a cute Christmas market, a building set up like the north pole with elves, have an Illuminations lights show, and we made it for the first night of their January fireworks displays (they started them Dec 26).
In Denmark, Christmas is also referred to as the Celebration of the Heart. I'm not sure exactly why, and I didn't quite understand the explanation, but it meant that the decorations in the city are half Christmas and half Valentine's Day.
Of course, we also rode some roller coasters! There was a GIANT swings that we went on as well- you could see almost all of Copenhagen!
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