In a continuation of our trip to Germany we journeyed from Hamburg to Copenhagen by train. We arrived there some 3 hours later than scheduled but, as we have learned, nothing is quite on schedule in the heat of summer in Europe.
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| Our Floating Hotel, CPH Living |
We made our way to our hotel, the CPH Living, a floating hotel on the southern edge of Christianshavn. Not a bad hotel but it was getting a bit worn and tired looking and again it didn’t have AC. It did have a full size window and door looking out over the water that allowed for a lovely breeze in the room. We dined on the top deck of our boat/ barge on food we had bought from the 711 at the station. Then it was a restless nights sleep in a still hot room with quite a lot of traffic noise.
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| Steve, Diana, Lisbeth |
The next morning after breakfast also on top of the boat we met our Florida friend Lisbeth at a nearby coffee shop. Lisbeth, a Copenhagen native who also lives in St Petersburg, took us on a walking tour of the center of Copenhagen. It is a beautiful and very walkable city.
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| Nyhavn, Copenhagen |
I had been to Copenhagen some 6 times before so I have seen most of the sights. We took in the oh so photogenic Nyhavn, the main square Kongens Nytorv, the spectacular Marble Church, and the beautiful Amalienborg Palace.
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| Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen |
We left Lisbeth around 11:00 and made our own way for a while. We watched the noontime changing of the guards at Amalienborg and then walked over to the Rosenborg Castle. We didn't go in as there were not tickets until later in the afternoon. We walked around the botanical gardens and then had a light lunch in a cafe by one of the artificial lakes on the northwest side of the city.
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| The Round Tower |
After lunch we walked to the Round Tower and went up the spiral carriageway to the top from where there are great views of the city. On our way back to the hotel we walked by the city hall and the main square. Tivoli and the Hans Christian Anderson statue is also there. I took Diana’s photo with the Mr. Anderson.
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| Den Lille Havfreu |
In the evening Lisbeth and her daughter Emma picked us up and drove us around the city. We stopped by the most unimpressive Little Mermaid statue then walked around Churchill Park and the Kastellet fort area.
I then had to abandon the others and go to the hotel for a video consul with my doctor in the US. Diana, Lisbeth and Emma went to a nearby restaurant, Naervaer, to wait for me. On my way over to the restaurant my Uber driver had a collision with a bicyclist. Not a good thing for an Uber driver to do in Denmark. The cyclist’s bruises and cuts will quickly heal but I bet the Uber driver, an immigrant from some part of Africa, will struggle to keep his job.
The next morning we walked over into the Christianshavn area. The most memorable church in that area, the Church of our Saviour, with its external staircase around its steeple was undergoing renovation and was closed.
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| Christiania, Copenhagen |
We walked further on to Christiania, the old army base that was squatted on by hippies, anarchists, the provos and many others in the 60's. They have continued to live in this semi-independent bohemian part of the city ever since. It has now become a tourist destination - quite colorful but a little shabby. In recent years they have cleaned up so called Pusher Street where there once was open selling of drugs. Nowadays, they are trying to become more respectable and take a dim view of any drug selling in the area.
From Christiania we walked over to the Christianburg Palace and toured the Royal Receiving Rooms - quite large and regal but like so many other magnificent buildings of that era they are not particularly distinctive to me. Grand staircases, fine receiving rooms, immense dining rooms, bedrooms with 4 poster beds. All the grand capitals of Europe have similar establishments.
We next went looking for a lunch spot and almost by accident stumbled into a small below street level restaurant just off the end of Gammel Strand called Slotskaelderen. The restaurant is only open for lunch and it only serves open faced sandwiches (smorrebrod) but they are really very good. It's been open since 1910 and it even has a Michelin recommendation.
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| Smorrebrod at Slotskaelderen |
I had a pickled herring, potato and egg smorrebrod, Diana had a white asparagus and small shrimp one. It is a very leisurely restaurant and the food took ages to arrive, and that gave plenty of time for a second beer, or an aquavit (which they were serving but I didn’t indulge). For dessert, a rhubarb trifle and a berry soup/compote with cream - highly recommended.
From a two beer lunch I went to sit outside the very fine Hotel Angleterre and drink coffee while Diana walked around the department stores.
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| Tivoli, Copenhagen |
After refreshing in the hotel, we went out in the evening to Tivoli. This is the second oldest amusement park in the world having opened in 1834. As you would expect with an amusement park there are lots of cheesy kids things and a lot of old fashioned stalls and rides but they have also added more modern, more dramatic, more scary rides - not for me.
We dined again on smorrebrod (open faced sandwiches) in Tivoli and it was very good, surprisingly good for amusement park food.
The next morning, our last in Copenhagen, we had breakfast on the roof of our boat. It was a beautiful sunny morning and people were swimming in the water across from our boat.
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| Water Taxi, Copenhagen |
We then went to catch the city ferry so we could see the city from the water. The ferry went south from our boarding point at the National Bibliotek all the way down to Teglholmen and back and then up to the Opera House. The architecture of all the new modern residential buildings beside the water is really good, always creative, always interesting, never just a simple block of flats like elsewhere in the world.
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| Opera House, Copenhagen |
We got off the ferry at the Opera House and walked around the exterior of this fabulous new building. We then caught the next ferry back to our hotel where we checked out and walked over to the railway station for our train to Stockholm, via Malmo. The short 40 minute ride to Malmo over the Oresund bridge-tunnel was uneventful and we arrived in time for our Swedish Railways train to Stockholm. And very nice it was too - in first class, very modern, very luxurious.
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| View from Hotel, Stockholm |
In Stockholm we walked the busy main shopping street to the waterfront area and our hotel the Radisson Strand Hotel.
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| The Royal Palace, Stockholm |
In the evening we walked over to the old part of town, Gamla Stan. We walked past the impressive Royal Palace, the not so impressive statue of the Iron Boy watching the moon (allegedly the smallest city statue in the world). We went on to admire the old buildings in Storgarten square, one of the most scenic and photogenic spots in the old city.
We found a nice restaurant in an old square not far from Storgarten and dined on moules and frites.
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| The Narrowest Street, Stockholm |
We then finished the evening with a walk around the old town Gamla Stan - Marten Trotzigs Grand (the narrowest street in Stockholm at 90 cm wide), the statue of St George and Dragon, and the giant Lion statue near the Royal Palace.
Next morning we set off to explore the city. As we were passing the waterfront, a ferry docked so we got on board and rode all the way out to Nadia Strand. It is the best way to view the city. On the return trip we got off near the Grona Lund amusement park and walked over to the Vasa Museum.
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| The Vasa |
This was my third time at the Vasa museum and it never fails to impress. What a grand vessel it was and what a tragedy when it sank on its maiden voyage. Furthermore, what a fine piece of recovery and restoration work they have done to make it what it is today.
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| The Golden Mosaic Hall, City Hall, Stockholm |
From the Vasa we took an Uber over to the Stadshuset, the city hall, and went on the tour. The Stadshuset is such a wonderful building in such a wonderful location. It has become the iconic image of Stockholm. It is impressive on the inside too - the Blue Hall (which is not at all blue), the city government chamber, the Prince's room with its murals and, of course, the most beautiful Golden Hall with such amazing gold mosaics.
We walked back to Gamla Stan once more and visited the Nobel Museum. Each Nobel Prize winner is asked to bring something that is significant to them or to their work and so there is a collection of these gifts in the museum - shawl from Malala Yousafzai, a trunk from Erwin Schrodinger, glasses from the Dalai Lama, a copy of Old Man and the Sea from Ernest Hemingway, Yosemite climbing guide from a US Physicist. They were also showing short movies on various recipients - Nansen (who was not only an arctic explorer but the creator of the Nansen Passport, and for campaigning for famine relief in Russia), De Klerk and Mandela and their efforts to bring South Africans together, Jody Williams for her work on banning Land Mines, the UN Negotiator in SWAPO/S Africa conflict in Namibia. All very interesting and educational, but we were kicked out when the museum closed for the evening.
We had dinner at the Grillska Huset on Stortorget. Very excellent Swedish Meatballs with lingonberry sauce - an IKEA favorite of mine. The town was full of Jehovahs Witnesses who were having their worldwide conference in Stockholm. Lots of smiling happy faces with badges around their necks - join the club.
The next morning, after breakfast in the hotel (a mediocre breakfast), we walked over the bridge to the island of Skeppsholmen where there is a museum of modern art. It was quite a good gallery with a varied collection - Dubuffet, Miro, Dali, Magritte, Siqueiros. Also a special exhibit of photographs by the Hungarian photographer Brassai - lovely black and white photographs, shot in 1930’s Paris and nearly all of them shot at night or in the fog.
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| The slide at the Modern Art Museum |
There was a slide down the outside of the gallery from the top floor to the ground - one of those tube types that twists and turns around on its way down. There was no law against 70 year olds using it so we gave it a go - great fun.
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| The Sedish National Museum |
Back over the bridge to the mainland we went to the Swedish National Museum. This was primarily full of 17th, 18th, 19th century work. This is not my favorite art but there were a few nice pieces in there - a Canaletto, a Rubens, a Renoir. There was a special exhibit of work by the 18th century Swedish sculptor and artist Johan Tobias Segel.
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| Ostermalmstorg Market |
In the late afternoon we walked up to the old food hall and market at Ostermalmstorg. The market hall was full of wonderful food stalls many with associated eating areas. We had a late lunch/early dinner in one named Nybroe - again it was a couple of very nice Danish Smorrebrod.
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| The Royal Palace |
The next day, our last in Stockholm, we walked over to the Royal Palace and did the tour. As I have mentioned before, the Palace is a wonderful building but every European Capital has similar palaces. There were great rooms and magnificent staircases and fine furnishings but I find it hard to distinguish one period palace from another.
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| Changing the Guard |
After the Royal Palace we watched the changing of the guard in the square next to the Palace. There was military band playing and lots of marching around with flags and swords and the like.
We walked back over to the Ostermalmstorg market and around the shops in the nearby streets. After coffee and cake, or Fika as the Swedes call it, we made our way back to the hotel to get a cab over to the ferry port.
Our ferry, the Viking Cinderella, was ready for boarding and it was a very efficient process. The check in machines were plentiful and they worked, a scan of an email QR code and our cabin tickets and dinner tickets were spit out. We then made our way up numerous escalators to the level of the ship. We were on level 9 with an outside cabin and views of the water. It was a small room but it had everything we needed.
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| Leaving Stockholm on the Ferry |
We went up on deck to enjoy what turned out to be a beautiful warm, sunny afternoon. Right on time at 4:00 pm, we started moving and slowly left the city behind us as we threaded the way through the numerous islands of the Stockholm Archipelago. (There are some 24,000 to 30,000 islands in the archipelago). We passed many fine homes and many small cabins that were idyllically located near the edge of the water. What a beautiful area to live in and many of the places were less than an hour from the center of Stockholm by road.
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| Island in the Stockholm Archipelago |
We had prepaid for a dinner on board and we were given a window table with more wonderful views of the archipelago. Surprisingly, the meal was excellent - ceviche, cod cheeks and scallops, a strawberry dessert and cheese (French cheese called Head of the Monk) with port.
Around 11:00 pm we stopped in Mariehamn, on the island of Aaland. The sun was just slowly setting and it was a beautiful evening. Aaland is an autonomous region of Finland where everyone speaks Swedish rather than Finnish. It is outside of the Schengen area so the fact that the boat stops there allows them to sell duty free goods on the boat. If they had been staying in the Schengen area then apparently duty free sales would not be allowed.
It was a very calm crossing of the Baltic Sea and we arrived in Helsinki around 9:00 am. Unfortunately, it was raining when we arrived so we took a taxi to our hotel, the Lilla Roberts Hotel, where we left our bags and went off to explore the city in the intermittent light to sometimes heavy rain.
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| Helsinki Cathedral |
Our first stop was at the Esplanade gardens, then we walked around the market at the harbor before going up to the Senate Square with its monumental white marble church.
One of Nelimarkka's landscapes
Being a Sunday the church was closed to tourists so we continued on to the Atenium Art Gallery. This is the Finnish National Gallery housed in a grand old building. There was an exhibition of paintings by the Finnish artist Eero Nelimarkka. He did a lot of portraits, many of them self portraits, and a lot of landscapes of the Finnish countryside. They also had a permanent collection of other Finnish artists. Surprisingly there was a single and very fine Van Gogh.
Helsinki Station
We then walked over to the railway station. In my humble opinion, the Helsinki Railway Station is one of the most beautiful stations in the world. Designed by Eliel Saarinen it is a masterpiece. All gratitude to the Finnish people, it has not been altered much during its lifetime.
The elegant cafe in the Station
We had coffee and cake in the station’s majestic coffee shop/restaurant. What a wonderful environment that was. Beautiful design, beautiful furnishings, beautiful artwork, and a great cup of coffee in a very quiet and calm setting.
Moving on we walked around the town until the serious rain started. At that point we decided we should go back to the hotel. For a few minutes while we were walking to the hotel the rain was just torrential. We were very damp when we got inside the hotel.
The HAM Gallery
After a rest and after the rain had stopped we ventured out again to visit the HAM art gallery (Helsinki Art Museum). This is the gallery that has the giant seagull on top of the entry - very photogenic.
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| Abakanowicz's Tapestries |
The exhibits were a little disappointing until we reached the top floor and the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz. She works with large scale weavings and tapestries. The several giant colorful weavings hanging in the exhibition hall were most impressive.
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| The Kamppi Chapel |
We walked back by the wooden Kamppi Chapel. A wonderful wooden structure but unfortunately it was closed so we didn’t get to see inside.
We stopped off at a pizza restaurant on the way back to the hotel for dinner. As it is light until 11:00 pm, I went out for a walk around 9:00 to explore the neighborhood around the hotel. All very quiet and peaceful. The only disturbance was the many food delivery guys riding around on their giant wheeled electric scooters. Nearly everyone appeared to be an immigrant - that’s the jobs they can get.
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| Church in the Rock |
The next morning, we walked over to the Church in the Rock, Temppeliaukio. This church is built into the rock and it has an amazing interior with its copper roof and simple pews. We were fortunate to encounter a recital on the organ - very nice.
Our Finnish Pottery Friend
Walking away from the church we stumbled upon a pottery studio. Both of us being pottery fans, we stopped to look and were invited in. The most spotlessly clean studio shared by 2 or 3 potters. Somehow we ended up buying a small piece. We shouldn’t do that, we should make our own.
The rain started again so we ducked inside the Finlandia concert hall where there was a cafe. The building, designed by Alvar Aalto, is quite fine.
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| Piano in the park, Finlandia in rear |
After coffee the rain had stopped so we walked across the park towards the library. On the way there was a piano, a piano that was waterproofed and hardened to stay outside, presumably an electric piano but it is hard to tell from the sound. Diana had a go at playing, the first time since we left Florida in March. She has lost some of her chops.
The whole area between Finlandia and the library had been left to grow wild flowers and grasses - rewilded I suppose. An example of how the Fins think of everything there was a small building in the middle of the park where you could repair your bicycle - it had an interior space and all the tools and knowledgeable people on hand.
We went inside the wonderful library, known as OODI and explored the interior. A cafe and restaurant, a work area where you can borrow 3D printers, large format printers, sewing machines, sound recording equipment, photographic equipment, guitars, pianos, you name it. And of course they have books. And book carrying robot vehicles that wander around.
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| The Kluuvi Theater and Gallery |
We next visited the adjacent Kluuvi Theater and Art Gallery. A nice exhibit of sculptures and some interesting art. One floor was devoted to Sami Art. The Sami are the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia and Russia. It was pointed out that the Sami had lived there for many years before there was even a Sweden or Finland or Norway or Russia. Somehow their land got carved up into four different countries without them having any say in it.
We walked back into town and visited the interior of the Lutheran Cathedral, it was closed previously. The interior is a stark contrast to the Catholic or Orthodox churches - very simple, very plain but still an impressive exterior and a huge high ceilinged interior.
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| The Market Hall, Helsinki Harbor |
At the end of the afternoon we made a visit to the old market hall. Another opportunity for coffee and cake. We are really getting into the Fika now.
Cafe Kapelli's Salmon Soup
In the evening we dined at the Cafe Kapelli on the Esplanade. Smoked Arctic Char and the very good Finnish Salmon Soup.
The next day we were up early for a 7:30 boat to Estonia. It was raining so we got a taxi to the ferry. The boarding process was simple and efficient. You check in like for an airline and your boarding pass is on the phone. We somehow had access to the Premium Lounge so we had unlimited coffee and snacks for the short 2 hour journey.
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