Taste of Scandinavia
June 6th, 2008 by Scuba
On Monday we left Leeds on the start of our long trip home. Many sad goodbyes were said, but hopefully we’ll be meeting up with friends in London, if not then in the near future sometime. Throughout the year we’ve had many fun nights out, enjoyed movies in the communal cinema and cooked delicious group meals together. After packing, my room was as bare as it was upon arrival - my possessions either sent home, in what is now an almost-bursting backpack or left behind with friends.
The trip to Copenhagen was a long one. We left Leeds at 1pm and took two trains and the tube to London Stanstend Airport, where we flew to Arhus in Denmark. After a bus to the train station in Arhus, we got the 1am night train to Copenhagen. We arrived at the hostel in Copenhagen at 6:30am, dumped our bags and set off to explore the city.
Copenhagen was packed with bicyclists and joggers, embracing the gorgeous weather that lasted the two days that we were there. Serious shorts-and-shirt weather, even early in the morning, unlike the short glimpses of sunlight we were used to in Leeds (that week of sun was a major freak-of-nature though). We spent the morning walking down the wide canals seperating the different districts and recovering from the travel in some of the city’s many parks. After booking our bus to Germany, we wandered back through the Spanish quarter to the hostel, where we where finally able to check-in. We found our beds in the 14-bed dorm and caught up on some sleep (literally none on the train, with constant announcements and overhead lights). That night we endulged in a meal at “Scandinavia’s largest” Turkish buffet at Ankara, which was pretty good for the price.
The next day we decided to hit the city hard, combining a few of the walking tours described in the Use-It guide we’d picked up. We started off in the inner city, working our way from City Hall, past the Cathedral, University and Synagogue to the Round Tower - Rundetaarn. took in awesome views of Copenhagen at the top of the curling corridor. From there we meandered through the Rosenborg Castle Gardens until we reached the castle, now the Royal Treasury. We visited The Little Mermaid statue next, where there were plenty of tourists jumping off busses for a picture.
We walked around the harbour a bit before heading back to town via the Russian Orthodox Church and another huge church - Frederikskirken. Just across the street was Amalienborg Palace, home to the Royal Family. No sign of Australian Princess Mary, but quite a spectacular palace to say the least. Across the river we could see the built futuristic Opera house. After making our way down through the central square, Kongens Nytorv, and the financial area of the city, we crossed the river to tour around Christianshavn and Holem.
We started out at the church Christianskirken, which had a strange layout of a raised pulpit, surrounded by galleries. We made our way into an inner-city oasis, the freetown Christiania. Originally squatters took up residence in an old bunker here, but it is now inhabbited by self-governing hippies. Pretty interesting seeing people living so close to nature in a city. Nearby we got to visit the opera house up close, what used to be the dockyards and the 1600’s church Vor Frelsers Kirke, with an awesome looking spiral tower on top. From there we crossed back across the river, to finish the other tour. It took us past the Stock Exchange, Royal Stables and Law Courts. We finished up on the pedestrian street Støget which, at 1.6kms long, is the longest in Europe. After a full day on our feet we headed to the hostel exhausted, but happy with how much we’d packed into the day.
Most of today has been spent on buses and a ferry, but as I write this we’re nearing on Berlin where another few exciting days await us.