A Quick Tour Of London

Here is the update for London. We have very limited Internet connection in Norway at this time, so more updates may be delayed. Have been to Eidfjord, Ålesund, and Geiringerfjord so far. Today is our last stop, in Bergen, with an 'at sea' day tomorrow before arriving back in Dover on Saturday.

If this is England there must be another queue to stand in. Our flight arrived at London-Gatwick airport at 11:15 Andy after waiting one and a half hours for passport control we made the Gatwick Express to Victoria Station. It was a 30 minute ride and a walk across the street to our hotel. We checked in and headed back out to see some of the Olympic Park. After waiting 30 minutes in the queue to get a day pass for the underground we went to the Stratford station. You can't get into the park, but there was a good view from the 3rd floor of the John Lewis department store, where you could also buy Olympic souvenirs.

This is a part of Olympic Park. The aquatic center is on the left and The Orbit is the taller structure on the right. The CEO of the company Aaron works for, Arcelor-Mittal, donated the steel and much of the money to build it. We could see part of the Olympic stadium, but it was hard to get a good sense of the size and design. It will be interesting to see better views during TV coverage of the Olympics, which start July 27.

A closer view. You can see the observation level near the top.

Mike from ground level.

We walked along the Thames for a view of the Olympic rings that were just erected the other day on the bridge.

This is from a little closer. You can see the rings a lot better in this picture.

Roxanne outside the Tower of London. I think she is is done with walking across the bridges, so we found the nearest underground station to Westminster.

We stopped at Big Ben and Parliament next.

Westminster Abbey on the left, I think part of Parliament in the distance on the right, and my beautiful Wife in the center.

We went by Buckingham Palace, too.

It is never a bad time for a Krispy Kreme donut.

Roxanne and her new best friend, Elizabeth.

Our last supper in London - an Indian restaurant. Roxanne really enjoyed a change from all that herring, chicken tikki bhanhai prepared tandori style. Mike had the chicken vindaloo, which was very hot, but very good. We shared onion and garlic nan (flat bread), which always helps with the really spicy food.

 

Last Views Of Denmark

One thing there wasn't a shortage of in Copenhagen is bicycles. There are dedicated bike lanes on most of the streets and pedestrians need to yield to them. The sidewalks are mostly cobblestones, which was not the best for walking, but that did not stop us.

These bicycle racks are at one of the bus/train stations. People bike to the station and then take a bus or train from there.

Our best friend in Copenhagen, the bus. The Copenhagen Card we bought was good for unlimited transportation for 3 days.

The first couple of days we saw a lot of young people wearing hats like this. We thought maybe they were tour guides, but it turns out this was the week of high school graduations. The tradition is to wear your graduation cap for the week. A red band is for those completing the traditional 3 years of high school. A blue band indicates a 2 year program for learning a specific trade.

Our food tour guide asked this graduate to pose for a picture. His Mom looked very proud when we took his picture.

This truck was driving through town with the graduates cheering (and perhaps drinking).

For our last meal in Copenhagen (not counting the pastries we bought for breakfast at the green market) we went to a restaurant called 'Toe 2 Nail' in the Meat Packing district. It was in the basement and it had a unique atmosphere and interior.

We weren't sure what we ordered since they did not havean English menu and the waitress was not able to explain it very well. Some of the food we had ended up being close to what we ate during the food tour.

We both enjoyed a beer with our meal.

For dessert we ordered strawberry with creams and they brought a different dish. We sent that back and ordered a panna cotta with a tart thickened rhubarb sauce.

Here are a couple views of the apartment we stayed at in the Vesterboro area. This name refers to this area as the 'west gate' of Copenhagen. The apartment was great and a good location for us.

It is sad to leave Copenhagen, but we are looking forward to London and then onto the cruise ship in Dover and to Norway.

 

Rosenborg Castle

After the food tour we walked over to Rosenborg Castle. Rosenborg castle was built by Christian IV to have a residence in Copenhagen, in addition to Fredericksborg Castle. It is also where the Danish Crown Jewels are kept.

This is a view from the entrance to the area.

This is the other side of the Castle which extends into a large park and gardens.

Here is one of the garden areas.

This is the great hall, which has all of the walls covered with tapestries.

Thrones, of course.

Here is a good view of one of the 16 tapestries covering the walls of the great room.

The Treasury holds the Crown Jewels, but it also holds many other artifacts of gold, silver, ivory, amber, etc. It even included a set of miniature war figures. (I don't think Ross could use these for the Flames of War game)

Christian IV Crown

The current crowns of the King and Queen of Denmark. Sometimes items, even the Crowns, in the Treasury are not on display because the royalty are wearing them.

 

Eating Our Way Through Denmark

On Thursday we decided to take a 4 hour food and cultural city walking tour starting at 10 AM. This tour is operated by "Copenhagen Food Tours". We had a great time and would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Copenhagen. If you want more details, check out their web site: www.CphFoodTours.dk

Maria was our guide. What a coincidence, she just returned in January from a 5 month stay in Elk Horn, Iowa. She worked at The Danish Immigrant Museum while she was there: dkmuseum.org It was fun to hear her good stories about Iowa. She hadn't realize how much there is to learn about John Deere and their tractors.

The tour started at a new green market that promotes local farmers and food producers, including specialty foods from around Denmark. Our first stop was a cheese maker that uses organic and sustainable processes. We tried 3 kinds of cheese and our favorite was the Danish bleu cheese. (we bought some of it later for a snack at our apartment, using the last of our Danish kroners)

this stand features products from the island of Bornholm (southeast of Copenhagen). We had a variety of tasting, including rhubarb juice, honey akvavit, and black licorice. We liked the rhubarb juice best and the akvavit certainly had a kick to it.

Here is the smørrebrød (open faced sandwich) sampler we had at Aamanns. Open faced sandwiches are very typical of Denmark, but Aamanns has taken it to another level. As you can see, each of them was different and all of them were delicious. The ingredients used included smoked mackerel, chicken and asparagus, and a meatball.

Here we are before cleaning our plates.

The rhubarb here is growing bigger than Roxanne. Unfortunately for Dan Benson they wouldn't let us pick any.

This is the botanical gardens, where we stopped to enjoy Æbleau dessert wine from Vineyard Skærsøgaard, the first authorized vineyard in Denmark. It is an apple wine. Apples are very popular in Denmark, where they raise a large number of varieties.

A nice view crossing one of the waterways that wind through the city. This is near the main hospital in Copenhagen, where almost all of the babies are born.

Carlsberg beer dominates the country, but microbreweries are now very popular too. The founder, J. C. Jacobsen, and his son Carl ( the company and beer are named after him), were very philanthropic. They contributed extensively to the community, including museums, and the botanical gardens.

This beer is from the Nørrebro Bryghus, a local microbrewery that makes all its beers on the premises. This one is called Kongen af Danmark, a Belgian style candy beer that is made with the aniseed flavored 'King of Denmark' drop from the candy company we will visit later in the tour. We enjoyed the distinctive flavor.

We sampled two other types of beer. We had Sommør Porter, which is a light bodied porter, and Stuykman Wit, inspired by the traditional Belgian Wit bier. The Stuykman Wit is made from organic Danish wheat and barley, with coriander seed and orange peel added. The Stuykman Wit was our favorite and if we had more time, and room in our stomachs, we would have gone back for a full glass and a meal.

Skål!

You might wonder why we would come all the way to Denmark and then stop at a hot dog cart, but this was a truly Danish experience. There is an interesting history of the hot dog carts here. We found out The Danish Immigrant museum in Elk Horn, Iowa has acquired one of the old carts.

Making Mike's choice.

Mike's choice - Swedish style with sausage, mashed potatoes, beets, pickles, mustard, ketchup, and onions. No bun.

Roxanne's choice - beef sausage with 'French sauce' and mustard. The roll does not start with the sausage, but they do have a hole in the roll where they squirt in the mustard and French sauce before inserting the sausage.

She almost ate the whole thing.

Here is the candy shop we stopped at. They make a variety of favors of hard candy, including the candy in one of the beers we sampled earlier.

All of the candy is made there.

Here are the choices.

Our minds turned to rhubarb and ...

they had rhubarb flavored candy! We bought some to share, along with the Queens candy and a coffee flavored candy.

We headed back to the market we started at and sampled a strawberry.

The final stop was at the famous Summerbird chocolatier. We tried a sample that had a fluffy center, a crumb layer on the bottom, and was dipped in dark chocolate. Delicious!

Here is the store. You might notice the two people with white hats to the side. More about that in another post.

There are so many details and stories shared by Maria along the way that we might revisit that later. The tour was a tremendous experience and was certainly a highlight of our time in Copenhagen.

Full and satisfied, it was now time for more walking and sightseeing.