11/5 & 6: Copenhagen: Our Final Adventure!

The last post ended in Israel with our having returned from visiting the West Bank town of Ramallah on November 4^th which truly marked the end of our long grand adventure we started back on August 3^rd . The next day began our long trek home; we were up a little after 2 am to get a shuttle to the Tel Aviv Airport, Israel’s only international airport, where our flight for Istanbul left at 7. We’d been advised to be at the airport at least 3 hours in advance in order to go through Israeli security. Luckily it went far faster than our crossing the previous day.

It almost felt like going ‘home’ again when we returned to Istanbul as we’d spent so much time there not so long ago! After a quick layover, we were on our way to Copenhagen where we had a full 24 hours to visit the lovely capital of Denmark. Our hotel, City Nebo, was all of 75m from the back door of the city train station which was just 3 stops from the airport – how incredibly convenient since we had so little time.

Hadn’t known that Denmark had been given the designation of the World’s Happiest Country by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (who/what?!).

After checking into our lovely mini suite, we dumped our bags and headed out in the dreary and drizzly weather to discover the city having only a map and no other tourist information unlike every other place we’ve been to this trip. Right around the corner from the station was the Tivoli Gardens that is a huge amusement park. We felt really as if we had entered a time warp when we saw, for the first time, signs advertising upcoming Christmas festivities there as we’d obviously seen no signs of Christmas in the Middle East.

Our first inkling of how popular bikes are in Copenhagen was seeing this bike park (my term) at the station.

The train station.

 Scenes of downtown Copenhagen:

We loved wandering down pedestrian only streets of Copenhagen and getting a sense of how truly spectacular the city must be in when the sun shines. Even with dreary skies and an early setting sun, we loved the city.

One of many people advertising local restaurants – the poor fellow looked so miserable standing in the cold.

The Royal Theater.

Unfortunately our only sight of one of the many canals in Copenhagen.

I remember thinking how glorious it was seeing all the vibrant colors in Copenhagen after being in the Middle East for a couple of weeks.

Marble Church

Beautiful Amalienberg Palace and Square.

Leaving the Palace area, we saw the Changing of the Guard.

I don’t know whether it was a case of our not having seen hardly any leaves for several weeks but I’d swear that the leaves in Copenhagen were the biggest ones I’ve seen.

Our goal was walking toward the famous Mermaid Sculpture so on we trudged.

Another beautiful church, at least from the outside, this one is St. Alban’s.

As strange as it sounds, this was the first park we had seen since leaving Istanbul except for one on Haifa, Israel. How lovely seeing all that green grass – I didn’t realize how easy it is to take it for granted until you no longer are able to see it.

How absolutely bucolic. Again, just wonderful seeing for the first time this year signs of autumn and the changing colors. I almost felt like we'd been transported back to my native Canada.

At last, the Mermaid – it’s pretty far out of the way and, as you can see, also very small and but was well worth our trek.

We’d hoped to be able see the inside of the Marble Church on our way back to the hotel but it was closed because of a choir practice.

The first of the season’s Christmas lights – yeah!

I felt like a small child seeing store windows decorated so beautifully decorated for the holidays.

No way to ever forget that Denmark is the land of Legos when visiting Copenhagen!

After grabbing a bite to eat by the station, we returned to the hotel and collapsed for the night. In the morning, we munched (munched on is far politer than saying scarfing!) on mouth watering croissants from a local bakery, before heading out to see some more of the city before we had to fly out at 1 on the next leg of our trip home.

The station from our hotel door – can’t ever get a more convenient location than this one.

Bike riders waiting patiently for the light to change.

Another beautiful church, the Cathedral Church of Our Lady – very stark compared to others we had seen in Poland and elsewhere at the beginning of the trip but still stunning in its simplicity, I thought.

Certainly no excuse to litter in Copenhagen when all the garbage bins (not cans in this case!) have stenciled footprints leading to them!

The aptly named Round Tower. It didn’t open til 10 and even though we were there just a few minutes before that, we couldn’t wait around.

Because we had so little time left, we only had a few minutes to enjoy the huge King’s Gardens.

Rosenberg Castle located in the Gardens.

A bench much like we’re all accustomed to, wouldn’t you say, Polish girl, unlike some we saw that masqueraded as benches?!

 Seeing these British Mason and Pearson hair brushed brought back memories from my childhood when my Mum, who grew up in England, always used them and talked about their being the best brushes.

‘God’ used in another context.

En route to Reykjavik, Iceland where we got a connecting nonstop flight to Denver. Thought you might be interested in reading these 'Most Amazing Things about Iceland.' On last year's trip around the world which we began in Iceland, we spent about 5 wonderful days discovering the southern part of the island nation. 

We left Iceland at 5pm local time and flew into Denver’s airport, 7 plus hours later, at 5:55! How great being back on home turf again after being out of the country for a full 97 days.

I hope to write one more post to summarize our great adventure but til then thanks to all of you for taking the time to slog through our posts and be our armchair traveling companions. I’ve loved writing the blog knowing thee were so many of you who enjoyed waking up each day wondering where we’d been, whom we’d been lucky enough to meet and what we’d seen since my last entry.

With thanks and love to each of you, Annie and Steven.