We got off our ship quite early on our day in Copenhagen, so nothing was really open for a while after we arrived in town. It is very easy to get into Copenhagen; you can take the public bus #26 which literally picks you up right at Langelinie Pier after you get off the ship; or you can take a very enjoyable walk along the waterfront into town. It was such a nice day when we arrived in Copenhagen so we decided to walk into town.
Not too far from Langelinie Pier along the waterfront, is The Little Mermaid statue, which was erected in honor of Hans Christian Andersen. Now usually the statue, which is quite small, sits on a few rocks right along the water, but when we were in Copenhagen, Her Mermaidness was actually on display in Shanghai for the World Expo 2010. Instead, there was a digital video screen in her place on the rocks with a live feed of The Little Mermaid statue in Shanghai. Here is a picture:
It was a little disappointing not being able to see the actual statue, because "The Little Mermaid" was always one of my favorite stories when I was a kid so it would have been cool to see her, but I knew in advance that she wouldn't be there. While there is an identical twin of the statue in Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, we didn't have time during our stay there to go see it. Nevertheless, it was still interesting to see the display there in her place.
As we continued our walk into town, we veered off the path along the waterfront and wound up walking along a path that led to St. Alban's Church, as seen here:
How beautiful is that? After admiring the beautiful surroundings for a moment, we continued on our way to Amalienborg Palace, which is set in a beautiful square with four different palaces in it and a statue of Frederick V in the center. There are Palace Guards standing near little red booths along the square and you can catch the Changing of the Guard ceremony there at noon. Here is a photo of me with the square behind me, where you can see the statue of Frederick V and the beautiful Marble Church in the distance.
We made our way back to the path along the waterfront and continued until we got to a street called Sankt Annae Plads, where we turned right; then turned left onto Toldbodgade, which led us to Nyhavn, which is a picturesque 17th century waterfront area with lots of beautiful boats in the canal and lots of shops and cafes lining the streets along it.
We were going to take a boat tour, which you can catch from Nyhavn, but it was relatively early in the morning when we were at Nyhavn and a little cool and windy, so we decided it would be best to save the boat tour for the afternoon instead. From Nyhavn, we walked to the Kongens Nytorv, which is the largest square in Copenhagen and has many historic buildings, including the Royal Danish Theater and what is now the French Embassy. We continued walking down Kongens Nytorv and, after encountering a little difficulty, we found our way to the Stroget, which is a very famous series of pedestrian-only connected streets with tons of shopping (including high-end clothing and typical souvenir shops) and restaurants (including McDonald's and Burger King). Now, it turns out that if we had crossed to the other side of the Kongens Nytorv square and followed that around, we would have found the beginning of the Stroget; but as such, we ended up catching it at about the middle, at a street called Amagertorv. Nevertheless, we found the Stroget, and as it was still early and not a lot of places were open, we sat down and had coffee and a danish at an outdoor cafe.
We then spent several hours walking along the Stroget shopping for souvenirs and other items (most of the souvenir shops were located closer to the City Hall end of the street as opposed to the middle). If you ever decide to walk along the Stroget, note that there aren't really any public WC's around, or at least any that we noticed; so, if you need to go, try going to the McDonald's, where their restrooms are located upstairs. (The combination to the locked door is 1-2-3, or at least that's what it was when we were there, thanks to a young lady who so kindly shared that information with us!) The Stroget will end at City Hall Square, with the entrance to Tivoli Gardens across the street:
Upon entering City Hall Square, we turned left, then turned right onto Stormgade, where we passed the National Museum and then continued down the street until we came to the canal, where we saw Christianborg Palace:
By this time, it was mid-afternoon so we headed along the canal to Gammel Strand, which is a square and street with very pretty 18th and 19th century houses. It was from here that we boarded a boat for a canal tour that took us past parts of Copenhgen that we never would have seen otherwise, including the beautiful Christianshaven district. Here are some photos I took during the canal boat tour:
One tip if you plan to take the #26 bus back to Langelinie Pier from town: you need exact change for the bus! We had used credit and/or debit cards for all of our purchases in town during the day and did not want to have to take out cash just for the few DKK bus fare, so when we purchased our tickets for the canal boat tour, the nice lady in the booth charged our credit cards not only for the tour tickets, but for the cost of the bus fare and gave the change to us to use on the bus! It worked out great and saved us from having to find an ATM to get more money than we needed (and pay the exchange rate and fees on top of that!).
We walked to the other side of the canal from Gammel Strand and got the #26 bus -- make sure it says Langelinie Pier on the front display before you board -- and it was a pretty quick ride back to the pier. The bus lets you off right at the pier, and since it was late in the afternoon when we got back, all the shops along the pier were open so we took a few minutes to browse through those. There were quite a variety of shops there, including outlet stores and many souvenir shops.
Everyone we encountered during our wonderful day in Copenhagen was very friendly and everyone spoke English, so there were no communication issues. While the town is easy to navigate on foot, make sure that you have a good map so that you can find your way, and have an idea of what you'd like to see so you can plan out a route for yourself. If you will only be in Copenhagen for a few hours like I was, you'll need to choose what's most important to you to see, but a great way to get an overview of the beautiful buildings, canals, boats, and skyline of Copenhagen is by a canal boat tour.
Copenhagen is truly a great place to visit and I can't wait to go back there and spend more time; but right now I can say definitively how much I love this cute town!
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