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Day 2, Copenhagen

Paraphrasing from the commercial…Yes, it is. Enough to get you wet if you don’t have an umbrella, but not pouring.

After taking the Metro to the main train station, we grabbed something to eat. We’ll be here again tomorrow, as today is our last in Copenhagen. In retrospect, we had planned to go to St Petersburg and added a day to Helsinki for that, then weren’t able to go to St. Petersburg due to the tight travel time on the ferry vs. the 72 hr no visa program. Wish we’d had that day here in Copenhagen instead; definitely need to spend more time here.

We’ve found using the Metro here pretty easy to navigate around. I used several apps – City Mapper (Copenhagen) and Google Maps, both of which have transportation directions. Comparatively speaking though, $7.66 (48Dkk) for two single use Metro ticket (2 zones) is hugely more expensive than London’s Tube or Paris’ Metro.

After lunch in the train station, we went to find the City Hall (Radhus). Danish Rad = advice ; hus = house | German: Rat =advice haus= house.

As we walked towards the Radhus,we passed the entrance to Tivoli Gardens. I’m not a big fan of amusement parks, though this one is renowned. But not on a drizzly day. That didn’t stop a dozen tour buses from bringing their travelers to Tivoli.

The fountain outside the Radhus shows a bull fighting a sea serpent.

Fountain: Each of the crowned sea creatures spouting water represent one of the “Three Crowns” Denmark, Sweden, Norway.

Inside the Radhus, the main hall is large, decorated around the border between first and second stories with info about historic events of the city.

There is a wall of benches along several walls and there’s a couple awaiting entrance to the wedding room. Yup, City Hall, where you go get married. Afterwards, the couple appears on a balcony over the interior of the hall for photos.

In a room just off to the right as you enter the Radhus is the World (Verdensur) Clock.

The fellow taking care of the clock “winds it” (pulls the chains for the weights) once a week and checks accuracy. We asked about its accuracy. He indicated it was off 1 second right now and he occasionally adjusts it. A remarkable story about clock and its designer.
Displays on the clock include lunar and solar eclipses, positions of the stellar bodies, and a perpetual calendar, in addition to the time.The fastest gear completes a revolution every ten seconds and the slowest every 25,753 years!

It had ceased raining by the time we exited the Radhus. We walked across to the Espresso House (ok, they Anglicized it) for a flat white and a snack. There are Starbucks here, but not seemingly on every block as they are in US.

Walking down Strøget we came upon a “hen party” out for a good time.

LEGO is a brand almost everyone recognizes and we saw several stores here, but the one on Strøget was two story.

The new and the old. Change is part of life and buildings get repurposed over time. But the changes aren’t always good.
Further down the street was a beautiful passageway.

And the Helligaandskirken (unfortunately closed when we arrived) built around 1620.

We made a new map pin when we stopped by the new Hermes store in Copenhagen, which opened just this past Saturday. Anyone in need of an Hermes skateboard, this is the place to come! But seriously, a beautiful store.
The rain returned, so we spent some time at the (covered) rooftop cafe, Illum Rooftop, which turned out to have a whole series of restaurants and bars on the top floor.

Food is expensive here. Our hotel isn’t close to a grocery store as far as we know, but a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke Zero was $5.10.

Tomorrow, we’re off to a new destination. But no planes for a while. We really enjoyed Copenhagen and would enjoy coming back to explore so much we didn’t have time to see on this first visit.