Copenhagen

9th January 2024: First trip away in 2024. We left Heathrow around 7pm with virtually no airport hassle – in fact the airport was very quiet. There was only about 40 people on the flight which took off and arrived on time. So everything was going smoothly until we got on the bus in Copenhagen and Vanessa said “where’s my phone”; instant panic! I rang the phone several times – couldn’t here it! Do we get off the bus and go back to the airport where we paid for the bus ticket? I checked her phone location from my phone only to see her phone travelling behind the bus – eureka, her phone must be on the bus. We searched again and found it in a back pocket of the laptop case . As soon as we arrived at the hotel, I increased the ring volume on the phone. then unpacked and settled down for the night.

10th Jan, Wednesday, Day 1: Got up early to catch the morning light – absolutely none due to the weather being overcast with a very heavy mist. So we set off to at least capture some images before breakfast. There were hundreds of people cycling to work at 0730 so we had to be careful when crossing the roads, but they at least know how to plan the road network with excellent cycle paths.

The Lille Langebro pedestrian bridge.

Just to our right was a women taking a bathe in the freezing water – we didn’t intrude by taking her picture as she was topless! We were quite surprised.

After crossing the Lille Langebro bridge we arrived at the ‘Circle Bridge’ but we the sky needs to be darker to get the more impact from the support masts, so we’ll try again another day.

The black building behind the bridge is the ‘Det Kgl. Bibliotek, (The Royal Library)’, but also known as the diamond building.

After breakfast, we headed off towards Nuhavn (New Harbour), stopping along the route for other photographs.

These round stones are outside the Christiansborg Palace which we revisited later in the evening.

Continuing our walk we arrive at Nyhavn which is also the departure location for the canal trips.

A canal trip was next, but be warned to check the prices. The boat at the end of the harbour (Stromma Canal Tours) will cost you 139 DKr where as the one we selected (Nettobådene, only 100 yards from the other) was 50 DKr each, which is approximately £5.70. But we had to wait 1 hour for the next boat.

So we headed off to Amalienborg platz which was very lucky as they were just about to start the major change of the guard which we assume would happen at 12:00 each day:-

After this we had no time to warm up with a hot drink, so we headed back for our canal trip which includes most the the sites.

Make sure you do wear extra layers of clothing if you do the canal trip in winter – it was freezing; although we were outside the canope at the front. The observant ones may have noticed the omission of the ‘Little Mermaid’ – it wasn’t worthy of a photo from the canal boat, so this was our next destination (after a well deserved hot drink) – much better from the shore.

Soon it would be dark, so we headed back to the hotel for another layer of clothing before heading out for some night photography. But first this image of the St Alban’s Church with the Gefion Fountain in front of it.

The Kastellet (Castle) is to the right out of shot, but the moat atound it was completely frozen.

Images across the water of the Skatteministeriet Departementet and the Circle bridge.

Finally a return to the Christiansborg Palace for our last image before finding some food.

The balcony in the distance will be where the new King will appear this Sunday after ascending to the throne.

11th January 2024, Day 2: The plan was to head out of the city by bus to get to the Hermitage Hunting Lodge in the Jægersborg Dyrehave nature reserve. We asked the concierge about the best way to get there – install the DSB app on the phone and book the trip – sounds simple! First we determined that if you only planned a few trips, then DON’T get a day pass. So Vanessa booked a return journey from the city to Hjortekær. Unfortunately the app didn’t make the process easy and about an hour later we had a ticket with a QR code on the phone. The problem is that the buses do not have QR readers on board, so we assumed it would just be treated like a paper ticket – ready for inspection if asked?

From the bus stop we had about a 20 minute walk to the park gate:-

Just inside the gate was a frozen lake which attracted our attention:-

So it was true, she really can walk on water!

Risky you might think; but there was a suggestion that it might be safe:-

This man and his wife have been skating here for years, so it should be safe to walk on it.

We headed on toward the hunting lodge, but as we progressed along the route we could see large a herd of deer in the distance. This was the main reason for heading out to the park. But what were the chances of getting close to photograph them – fortunately we came prepared with some long lenses.

The grounds were still covered with a thin layer of snow which meant we would stick out like sore thumbs, especially with me wearing a red coat. So I removed it whilst we tried our luck.

This group of 5 where isolated from a much larger herd of about 30, but it took us about 20 minutes of slow approaching steps to get this close. We then went on our way so as not to disturb them further.

This was build for a past king as these were his hunting grounds. We later heard from one of the locals that there were about 2000 deer in the park, so it was very likely we would see them.

Heading back across the frozen golf course within the grounds we were surprised when a small group of deer ran across our path. They were only about 50 yards away, so we stopped to let the rest of the herd follow – Fortunately they just stood there, posing for us:-

Oh deer, oh deer oh deer – have you ever seen so many stags together at once? The rest of the herd was out of shot to the left, but again, probably 50 deer in total.

After this we headed back past the lake to catch the return bus.

We got off the bus early to visit the king’s gardens and the Rosenborg Castle.

The sun was getting low in the sky, so we got back on the bus and headed back into the city for a few last minute photos.

Time for food as we’d missed out lunch, so we headed back across the city to the Gasoline Grill which was highly recommended by our son who had visited here only a few months before:-

We weren’t disappointed – one of the best burgers we’ve had in a while – you’ll find it on Landgreven road. So go there an try it out – there is some outdoor seating to the sides of the Grill with overhead heaters to keep the chill level down.

12th January 2024, Day 3: Today started with blue sky, but ended overcast again. For most of the day we continued to visit new areas of Copenhagen – some more interesting than others.

This is the Axel Towers building which was a short walk from our hotel. There was supposedly an interesting circular staircase inside, but we weren’t permitted to enter the building.

The Copenhagen City Hall was along our path, so we had a quick look see.

Continuing towards the east we visited the Round Tower building which is a 17th-century tower with an observatory, planetarium, event hall & spiral ramp instead of stairs. We only looked at the spiral ramp.

After a coffee we headed for the Christiania commune known for its free-spirited residents, quirky stores, music bars & street art. Photography inside the commune isn’t permitted, but we did take these few images as we approached inner area.

We continued beyond the commune to Copenhill which is an artificial ski slope on the roof of an ultra-modern energy plant, used also for hiking & climbing. It took 30 minutes to walk through an area of scrub land – not something we wanted to repeat on the return journey. We didn’t manage to get any photographs of the ski slope, but this link https://maps.app.goo.gl/GHdexEtMHxTPdKD5A will show you the slope. The top of the plant is 85 metres high, so there is a distant view over Copenhagen.

We caught the 2A bus into the city and then headed back to the Nyhavn inlet for some evening photographs before our meal.

13th January 2024, Day 4: The weather today wasn’t expected to be dry, plus we’d covered most of the locations in Copenhagen we wanted to photograph, so the plan was to have an early breakfast and catch the train to Malmo. Well we failed at the first hurdle and woke up late – couldn’t be helped as we’ve walked approx. 91,000 steps since Wednesday morning or 46 miles!….. and we still have tomorrow morning to go.

We caught the train from the central station and approx. 45 minutes later we were in Malmo. It goes via the Øresund international bridge which you can see in the distance in the image below.

As we left Malmo station it was snowing, so rain hoods up whilst we checked the location of the points of interest. 10 minutes later the snow stopped and apart from a 10 minute rain shower later in the day it remained dry, but cold due to the strong breeze.

There were 3 sites we planned; the light house, the twisted tower and the Apoteket Lejonet (chemist).

Notice the ice in the harbour inlet; it was approximately 5cm thick. The sky remained overcast all day but as mentioned earlier, it was mostly dry. When we stepped into the Apoteket Lejonet (chemist) it felt as though we had gone back in time.

We then found an ‘English pub’ – The Bishops Arms, which also had Timothy Taylor real ales on tap – a bonus. On leaving we took a few more images of the town before catching the train back to Copenhagen.

Tomorrow we are hoping to see the sun at sunrise, so a few more images planned tomorrow morning before we return home.

14th January 2024, Day 5: The city was going to be very busy due the the Queen’s abdication and the new King ascending to the throne. The forecast was good, so we had a slightly earlier breakfast and headed out to the Circle Bridge again to see if the improved light also improved our photographs.

The first photo was of the city library (‘The Diamond’):-

The tower in the background had been decorated with Danish flags overnight. The building has a black surface, but the early morning sun on it transformed it.

Now a few images of the Circle Bridge again, but this time taken with a super wide angle lens and in the golden morning light.

The final shots of the holiday where of the Nærboks Kaktus-Towers

After this we headed back to the hotel to pack and leave for the airport.

Our next adventure we hope will be back in the motorhome in the next few months. Weather permitting we’ll look at Wiltshire and later on Scotland.