It was a grey start to the day. The forecast claimed better weather as the day progressed and as a consequence I elected to wear nothing but my T-shirt and shorts whereas the others were dressed as if they were anticipating snow! Our plan for the day was to simply spend it in Copenhagen, with no itinerary in mind. With that, we walked the 10 minutes to the metro and were soon in the middle of Copenhagen at the metro station Kongens Nytorv and having a coffee in the nearby McDonalds before starting our day.

It was still cloudy but there were definite signs of the weather improving as we wandered around, just absorbing the sights. We basically walked westwards towards Tivoli gardens and the Glyptoket art museum. When we got there we felt that we really needed a plan for the rest of the day and we opted to go on another of the guided free walks, similar to the ones we have done in Warsaw and so on. The next one was due to start at 14:00 in the Town Hall Square, so we decided to head in that direction and find somewhere to eat in one of the streets off the square. On the way there, we were passed by a convoy of veteran sports cars, it appears that there is going to be a race of some sort hereabouts over the weekend.

When we arrived at the square with its magnificent town hall and fountain with a bronze dragon fighting a bull, the cars were arriving to be on public view in the square. We had time to look at them after lunch so we went in search of a café or bar that did Danish open sandwiches and conveniently, there was one just on the corner of the square. Owen & Geraldine had roast beef with a remoulade dressing and Julie and I had fried fish and everyone was pleased with their choice. For entertainment we watched couples dressed to the nines going to and from the town hall, presumably it has a registry office and they were there to get married. After lunch we spent some time admiring the cars and especially the deep, throaty sounds of their engines but after a while, it was time to find our tour guide.

Our guide for the two and a half to three hour walk was not a native Dane or better still, a native Copenhagener, rather he was an American of Iranian descent who had been here for 5 years and was married to a Dane and had two children. He was doing this job to supplement their income as he was studying for an MBa in tourism management. His name was Mohammed and he was very pleasant but oh, so American. He almost made us have group hugs before we started but we forgave him that! Mo, as he preferred, started off the tour by outlining the history of the town hall, it was number 5 in Copenhagen’s history, all the others having been burned down, including by us during the Napoleonic wars when Denmark refused to join the allies against Napoleon, opting instead to remain neutral, despite heavy pressure from Russia and France to pledge its fleet to Napoleon. That wasn’t good enough for us, so we bombarded Copenhagen and captured the fleet, thereby ensuring safe passage for our merchant ships to and from the Baltic. Later on, he gave us a precis of the 1000 year old history of Copenhagen, starting with its founder, Bishop Absalon, who’s statue I have photographed. Of course you can’t cover the history of a capital city without touching on the history of the country itself and this he did,  outlining the numerous wars that Denmark has had with its near neighbour, Sweden. He also covered Denmark’s brave story with regard to its’ Jewish population during WW2. Not only did the vast majority of Danish Jews escape the clutches of the Nazis by clandestine routes across the Sound to Sweden, who had agreed to take them all, their property and even their pets were cared for by the remaining Danes and of course they were repatriated straight after the war. A heartlifting story.

All was going well with Mo’s pitch but he was, for us, annoyingly one-sided about the positives of Danish life and Copenhagen – he was like a newly converted born again Christian or something! It finally got too much when he talked for a full 10 – 15 minutes about the benefits of taking some of the other tours and then stating that there would now be a break for a coffee etc. We’d been on the tour for some two hours but we felt that we’d had enough, so Julie and Geraldine went and gave him some money (less than we would have had we finished the tour and more importantly, enjoyed it (!) and with that we headed back to the Metro. Once off, we went to do a little more shopping and were back on board soon after 5, with the sun finally having broken through and it was very pleasant.

Dinner comprised spaghetti Bolognese cooked by Julie and at 10:00, we were ready for bed, tomorrow we are going back to Sweden for a 24 hour stop, the island of Ven, in the Øresund, roughly equidistant between Denmark and Sweden and right now, Swedish territory.