Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen was fun and lively with lots of people, beautiful buildings and live music going on.
We walked all over and went on a tour of a small, alternative lifestyle community called Christiania which was created in 1971. It's a cooperative village that has worked hard to be a thriving enclave. They have a blacksmith shop run by women as well as cafes, bakeries and many other small businesses. There are 600 adults and 200 children, along with numerous cats and dogs. We really enjoyed peeking into this different lifestyle. This is Julie, a long term resident, explaining things.
These are the laws they live by.
Here are some of the houses we saw.

Blacksmith shop.
We left Christiana and decided to climb to the top of this twisty church, Vor Frelsers Kirke (Our Saviors Church). It was easier going up than we thought although very narrow at times. The views were spectacular.
This is City Hall, famous to us because of the Danish TV series Forbrydelsen. It was gorgeous inside and we were so glad we took the time to check it out.
We next went to the island of Aero on a small ferry. We have been so lucky on this trip with the weather. A few sprinkles here and there but the sun popped out almost immediately. We did have one downpour during an open top canal cruise back in Copenhagen, but it wasn't cold and our clothes (gear) dried within 5 minutes. This is our street on the island.
This is our cottage.
This is our neighbor's house.
Our plan was to rent bikes, which we did early the next morning. We toured one side of the island, bike route #91, enduring a 5 minute shower, then drying off again quickly. It was beautiful and reminiscent of Ireland. We went on a second bike ride that afternoon, bike route 90 along another coastline. We have no idea where we went but it's hard to get lost on a tiny island.
After a delightful 2 day sojourn on Aero, we took our bus back to Copenhagen, where we embarked via an overnight ferry boat (18 hours) to Oslo.

No comments: