Today was our day to take the Hop On Hop Off bus tour of Copenhagen, which included a one-hour canal tour. First stop was Nyhavn (New Harbor) and our switch to the boat tour. Nyhavn, as you can tell from the photo, is a very colorful area and a desirable area to live at one point as Hans Christian Anderson lived here. Not so desirable today as there was a mass of tourists trying to catch the tour boats. But somehow, we were picked out of a long line and put on the boat ahead of many others.
We saw a great deal of Copenhagen from the boat including many of the more famous sights, but I liked the church on the left. That is the Church of Our Saviour which was built in 1639 and had an external staircase that leads to the top of the steeple.
After we finished our cruise, the next stop was a tour of the Amalienborg Palace. This is the home to the Queen Margrethe II of Denmark who has reigned here for over fifty years. We got there in time to see the changing of the guard but that was super crowded. We took a tour of the Royal History Museum in part of the palace in time to catch a part of the ceremony (photo at the right).
Our final stop today was to see the most iconic sight is all of Denmark and that is the statue of the Little Mermaid. The statue is based on an 1837 fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen and has been a major tourist attraction since its unveiling in 1913. It is surprisingly small, only about four feet tall. According to our boat tour guide, the statue has been a target for vandalism and protesters over the years and has lost its head twice and an arm once, but they have always been replaced and it was in perfect shape today. One funny related story is that the statue was modelled after the Danish ballerina, Ellen Price, but she refused to pose nude, so the sculptor's wife was used for the body.
And now for a continuation of our cinnamon roll taste test, at the left is a photo of a Danish Kanelsnegle. If you are sensing a theme in names, Kanal means "cinnamon" in Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. "Snegle" means "snail" in Danish, and I supposed it does resemble the way a snail shell looks. Jeanne says it was about the same to her as the Norwegian version, but I give it lower marks because it was very gooey, making it a bit hard to eat with your hands.
I should also add that we were very fortunate with the weather today. It was supposed to rain off and on today, but it didn't start until the evening, so it missed us.
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