Onion River Exploration Project: Return to Copenhagen

Eileen with a Guard

Day 20 (8/20/2010) Day 13 Baltic Sea Adventure

We were up at 5:00 this morning. We wanted to catch some breakfast before we left the ship. As it turns out we probably wouldn’t have to have hurried quite as much. We were afraid everything was going to be busy. As it turned out we must have been ahead of the crowd because we had breakfast and were off the ship by 6:30. We had a great taxi ride with a driver who gave us all kinds of tourist suggestions. It turns out our hotel is in the perfect location right between the palace and the most scenic area in Copenhagen, New harbor. We were worried that it would be too early to check in but we thought we could store our luggage while we walked around town. When we got there, the guy at the desk said our room was ready and we could go right in and that if we wanted we could go through the breakfast buffet. We settled for a cup of coffee and were off to see the town. We decided to start with the Palace and then worked our way down the board walk to Kastellet, an old fort that was surrounded sculptures and a beautiful church. On the board walk we ran into a street person who gave us more info. The most important was that the changing of the guard at the palace was at noon. We went back to the palace and watched the changing of the guard and Eileen got her picture taken with one of the guards. They all seem so young. Then we walked the other direction to New Harbor. It is the area where Hans Christian Anderson lived and wrote about. We photographed one of the houses that he had lived in. After much walking we decided to try the hop-on hop-off buses. We rode them for a while and were surprised how between our walks the first day and our walk today we had covered many of the land marks but now we had the stories behind them. As it turns out, Tivoli, the amusement park we had seen during our first day was actually built to take the Danish peoples mind off from their poverty and war. It was later Walt Disney’s inspiration for Disneyland. After the ride we came back to the hotel to chill for awhile before going to supper. After supper we continued to walk around until it was time for bed.