Rowkin Rovings Blog

Arrived into Copenhagen about 6.00am today. This is an extremely busy day for all the crew as they have to get about 3,400 passengers with all their luggage off and then the same on again all in under 10 hours. Don’t forget about all the cleaning of their cabins and the loading of the food!!! About 450 passengers have remained on from the Transatlantic cruise of which Fraser is going around telling everybody that our sentence has been extended!!!!
We were lucky today as although the weather was cool it was relatively fine so we opted to get onto a Hop On Hop Off bus and have a look around the city. We are both trying to recall lost file space as we also visited Copenhagen back in 1991 and apart from the Little Mermaid, neither of us can remember very much of the place. Of course a lot of Aussies will know about Denmark as the Royal Prince is married to Princess Mary who comes from Hobart in Tasmania so there is quite the connection there. Mary was out today as her flag was not flying over her palace of residence and we were a bit short of time so didn’t really have time to drop in for tea and scones.
For those of you not in the know Hans Christian Andersen came from Denmark and like many great people he did not become famous until after his death. As to other famous people who came from Denmark, there are not that many we can think of naming except maybe Stig Larsen.

 

 

Denmark is also known as having the enviable position of having the happiest population. That wouldn’t be difficult for any country to attain if university, child care, health care, minimum wage of $20/hr and a 33 hour work week were on your agenda. Maybe, lots of other countries need to review what Denmark has achieved and how they did it. Not sure how they manage to finance all this but one thing is for sure, their taxes must be astronomical. Need to do some more research on this and will follow up on further information .
The Danish flag. Unusual in that it has a handkerchief hem – well, that might not be correct but it. Isn’t your regular boring rectangle.

 

Their new opera house. Of course many of you know that the Sydney Opera house was designed and partly built by (no internet available to check name)……..who was definitely Danish. He never saw the finished product as there was a falling out between him and the powers to be due to the cost blow out. A lot of this blame could be put on the trade unions strangle hold on Australia at the time. Having said that, their new opera house also blew their budget out of the water and also the time, but they are all very proud as of it now.

 

 

 

 

Here are a few other highlights from our tour today. Apart from the Hop On and Hop Off bus, we also did a cruise around the canals of the city. As if we haven’t had enough of cruises you ask.
You can walk up this church spire which is just over 400 steps. Unfortunately, we did have time……

 

 

Feels like we are back in Amsterdam. There are two bikes for every Danish person and they bike all year round. Certainly a hardy bunch and maybe not so smart.

 

 

Below are some photos of a very famous street scene which is along part of the canal system. The area is called Nyhavn and was the old docks.
Ahh, aren’t they sweet.

 

 

 

 

The Royal guard. Their “hats” looked like a cut down version of the ones in England. Oh, these guards looked just soooo young.

 

The oh so tiny enclave of the current queen.

We wandered into this church and there were a few really nice things about it besides the magnificent dome and also the ornate inside. Firstly, you did not have to pay (last year on the blog Di ranted about how she refuses to go into churches where to you have to give one of the wealthiest male orientated businesses in the world your hard earned cash), and secondly, no guided tours were allowed inside so it was serenely quiet and a pleasure to be able to sit down and enjoy the grandeur of the place.

 

 

 

 
It was then onto the Little Mermaid . She hasn’t aged one iota in the last 26 years – wish we could say that!!! She is life size which a lot of people are very disappointed about but what we think makes her more believable.

 

Denmark is a lot further north than the Netherlands so hence their tulips were still in full bloom whereas they were finished in Holland. You can make out the very deep burgundy tulip in this bunch. Here is some not so useful information. Apparently they have created a black tulip and they are for sale but only if you have lots of moulie to spare.

 

 

So back to the tub to officially start the next cruise. We were required to move cabins due to the way we did our booking which was very painless for us. The room is 100% identical except it is two floors lower than our previous room.
We also wanted to get back as Peter and Patti should have joined the cruise by now and were looking forward to introducing them to their striped pyjamas. We got the opportunity to have a quick cuppa with them before we had to head off for the obligatory safety briefing. Will meet up for dinner tonight.
Here is some further Denmark trivia. The whole country is powered by either wind or solar power – another lesson the world could learn from the Danes. We saw lots of evidence of the wind turbines in the harbour.

 

The Danes are very proud of the fact that they are so green and one innovation they have is this huge incinerator in the city which provides them a lot of energy. They burn waste and it is such a guzzler that a lot of the waste it needs to keep it going has to come from other countries within the EU. OK, that does it, we are moving to the happiest, greenest kingdom in the world!!!
Back onto the tub and caught up with Patti and Pete who did not look that much worse for wear for their long trip to Copenhagen from Calgary. All six of us got together for a nice supper and news catch up.

 

 

 

We were not aware that Denmark is connected to Sweden by a bridge which is at the entrance to the Baltic Sea. We did not get the opportunity to cross it but here is a photo of the internet which shows you how amazing it is. It is part tunnel and part bridge. The reason for this is so that ships can go over the road as otherwise the bridge would have to be phenomenally tall to allow these huge cruise ships to go under.