2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 03 - Walking Tour of central Copenhagen.

 September 5, 2026

Horrible sleep last night.  Awake at 2:30 and could not go back to sleep.  Denise and I had a nice conversation around 4:30 AM…that is how off our sleep schedules are.  Normally I can go back to sleep.  but not last night.  Bummer.

Today was going to be our ‘walking tour’ guided by Denise Tiner.  We planned the sequence of things to visit during our conversation at 4:30 AM mapping out walking distances and timings of things.  But all in all, the day went pretty darn good.  But we are beat.  I will post pictures and then describe the activity below them.  Here I go….

We started our day at a bakery that has been in business since the 1600’s.  It is called Stk. Peders Bageri.  As you can see in the pictures, the line was quite long when we arrived and it took probably 20 minutes to get inside.  They had some really unique pastries…some better than others.  But our favorite was one with pistachio nuts all over it and chocolate frosting.  It was all really good.

So this was the sad part of our day.  The highlight of our day and trip was to be the seeing of the original Christus statue along with the 12 original apostles.  Unfortunately the church (Church of our Lady) was closed for the day due to baptisms going on and then a wedding.  Come on…what do they think…they are a church?  We were so disappointed that we’ve made the decision to go back there early tomorrow morning just before their services start and get some pictures.  Unfortunately we will miss going to the ward here and attending church in Copenhagen.  Timing will not work.  Fingers crossed we get in tomorrow to see the statues!

The next set of pictures above are of the Round Tower.  This one cost a bit to get in but was interesting and worth it.   It basically is an old observatory and was the home of the guy who determined the speed of light.  Can’t remember his name.  Anyway, upon entering you walk up this spiral ramp which as big enough to get a car on.  You go up and up and up eventually arriving at some stairs that take you outside where you get a panoramic view of Copenhagen.  The last picture is actually into the room that has some telescopes.  Again, it was pretty nice to visit and took about 30 to 45 minutes to enjoy.

The next couple of pictures is of Stroget street which is a pedestrian only shopping center that has been around 1962.  Being a Saturday, it was pretty popular with lots of people roaming the street.  We also passed a cool fountain that is also shown as we walked around Stroget.

The next set of pictures and stop was at Christiansborg Palace, one of 4 palaces where the King and Queen may visit and use.  The top picture was of one of the canals that you see sometimes as you walk along the path to each site.

The next stop was the Marble Church.  Unfortunately, it was being used.  I think being a weekend, there were tons of marriages and things going on within the churches.  But it looked pretty cool from the outside.  The statue that is also shown was one of many that we passed as we walked the streets here in Copenhagen.

The next stop shown above was Amalienborg Palace.  This is where the King and Queen have their residence.  Many large buildings make up this plaza for various royal reasons.  And as you can also see, at noon everyday is the changing of the guard.  Again, not having much luck, normally there is a band and a lot more pomp and circumstance than we saw.  But it was fun to watch nonetheless.  The top picture if one of the policeman that came over and gave us a really good overview of this plaza and all its buildings and this process of changing the guard.  Great guy.

The next stop was a 20+ minute walk to The Little Mermaid statue that sits along the harbor.  I’m not too sure what all the big deal is about this statue.   But I must say that the park all around was pretty nice and there was a ton of people in the area just doing stuff.  The top picture is the Geffion Fountain where we took a quick sit down break as we walked to The Little Mermaid stature. I really needed this as my legs were really hurting.

Interesting story about the next set of pictures above.  In the temple, we were shown a mural in the baptistery where many famous Danes where shown.  One of the individuals was a young lady who was an immigrant to America.  We were told that a statue of her and plaque was found near the site of The Little Mermaid statue.  We got talking about this and decided, what the heck, let’s make the walk to it.  It probably took another 15 minutes to get there.  And when we arrived, we could see the pier but no statue.  For whatever reason, a lady and her husband approached us and asked what we were looking for.  We told her a statue of a woman who had immigrated to America for religous reasons.  The woman was not sure much as to what we were saying.  But the man knew.  He said to keep walking and we’d see it.  And sure enough, we found it.  Pretty cool.  Over 20,000 immigrants left from this site to seek religious freedom in America…most pioneer members of our church.  And in front of this statue were little bricks that had names and dates of some who had departed from here.  It was a highlight of the day to find and see this.

 Our next stop was lunch.  So we retraced our steps back past The Little Mermaid status to a restaurant that sat on the harbor.  Outside was this stature made of iron…items retrieved from the ocean.  It was pretty cool.  The restaurant was called 7 kitchens because it was made up of 7 different kitchens that made different types of food.  Pretty unique.  Have not said how expensive dining out is…but we had 2 small salmon patties, nachos and a burrito bowl between all 4 of us.  The cost…$90.   I could get all of this for under $40 in the states.

The next stop and set of pictures is of a very popular site named Nyhavn.  It is a very colorful set of buildings along a canal with many, many eateries all around.  It was VERY crowded.  But a great spot to get some nice photos of us and this place.

Our next stop was Rosenborg Castle.  I don’t know much history of this place.  But the park it sits in was pretty amazing.  Lots of people just sitting around enjoying the lovely day we had…without any rain I might add.  We too found a bench and just sat, visited and enjoyed the beauty around us.  That was the end of the sites that we planned to see.  It was a lot of walking and all our feet hurt pretty good.  But such is touring sometimes.  All great fun.

Since we were close to Kim and Ilene’s Presidential Suite, we decided to go play some cards and rest a bit.  But on the way, we found an ATM so Denise could get some danish coins and such.  Unfortunately, we left our bank card at home.  But Kim brought his.  So they pulled some money out for us.  The picture of Ilene and Denise showing candy bars that they bought with the actual bills that they had.  We pulled out 100 DKK which is close to $15.  But the cost to do that…$9.  So we paid $24 to actually get $15.  I’ve made better deals in my life.  But Denise has her danish monetary souvenir.

Bikes are everywhere here in Copenhagen.  Everywhere with amazing bike paths through out the city.  So, Denise and I have wanted to rent bikes and do some pedaling.  And that’s what we did to get back to our hotel from the one Kim and Ilene are in.  As you can see from the map above, there are ‘hubs’ of bikes throughout the city where various merchants rent their bikes.  We used Donkey Republic.  It had a 60% off coupon for your first one way ride.  So we created accounts and applied the discount.  I think we rode about 8 km back to our hotel and it cost us $3.  Pretty cheap.  It was fun.  But Denise’s bike challenged her she said with its steering.  But we made it safely.  The odd thing is that few wear bike helmets.  You’d think that would be a requirement.  The other thing is that bikes are everywhere…and not locked up.  The rented bikes have a locking mechanism that makes them unuseable.  But the non commercial bikes don’t and most are not locked.  They trust each other I guess.  

Well…great day but wiped out.  Tomorrow we head to our cruise ship to start our 7 day cruise.  It might be a few days before I publish blog updates!

2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 02 - Kronborg Castle and lots of rain.

 September 4, 2026

Hello all.  Guess what?  I slept like a baby last night.  I was so tired.  And we both still are.

I actually woke up at 5:30 AM and began researching how to get to Kronborg Castle which is about a 50 minute train ride followed by a 20 minute walk.  It is found in the village of Helsingor which is a lovely village.  We took a regional train from the Norreport station having used a bus to get to the station.  We purchased some amazing danish pastries and ate most of them while waiting for the train at a bakery across the street from the station.  Yum…so good.  

The castle Kronborg was worth the trip.  It is big surrounded by two motes and sits right on the sea.  I guess the royals in the day loved to party.  King Fredrick V had a big hand in making this castle famous with his lavish parties.  I think his grandson followed suit years later thinking that women and alcohol were more important than running the country.  Pretty interesting.  We were there for over an hour seeing the inside of the castle.

After the castle we looked to see where we could get some fresh fish for lunch.  We stumbled upon a warehouse called Street Trucks and inside it had probably 10 street truck like shops selling all kinds of different ethnic food.  And we found fish and chips.  The warehouse was fool of random tables and chairs that looked like they were acquired at someone’s garage sale.  And the place was HUGE.  We loved it.  I wish it was closer to Copenhagen.

As we came back towards Copenhagen on the train, we decided to peel off early and go see the gravesite of Hans Christian Andersen, the famous children’s book author.  It was easy to get to but we expected a whole lot more sadly.  It was a pretty gravesite but nothing spectacular.  The graveyard was like a park however.  Lots of joggers with a ton of paths.  And all the gravesites were big, not croweded at all.  We found that interesting.  

Lastly, did I say it was raining today?  That’s why we chose to go all the way to Kronborg Castle.  We had originally planned to rent bikes, preferably e-bikes.  But with the forecast almost guaranteeing rain, we chose another thing to do.  And it was a good move.  However, we were not void of getting wet as it rained for the majority of the day.  I got quite wet not having a rain coat or an umbrella.  But it felt good.  And even though we were using trains and busses, we still walked around 15k steps.  As I write this, I’m feeling quite tired.

Our friends, the Wayments, are arriving today.  We are excited to meet up with them and begin to tour around with them.  We will have tomorrow (Saturday) to go see Copenhagen sites and then Sunday we head to the port and get on a cruise ship for a 7 day cruise.  

Funny story.  We get a call from Kim and Ilene that they had arrived and they gave us their room number.  So we said great, we’ll come down and then go find something to eat for dinner as it was around 6:00 PM.  So Denise and I went to their room and knocked on their door.  It was quiet.  So we knocked again.  Nothing.  So we text them and tell them we are outside their door.  They text back and tell us that they are too.  It turns out that they booked a different hotel…same brand (Wakeup)…but different location about a mile or more away.  We were shocked.  So I went to our front desk to ask if either of us could move.  But because we used third-party booking agencies, they could not do anything.  Both the street names of the locations begin with a ‘B’ and end with ‘gade’.  But they are different and neither Ilene or I caught this when booking.  So, we will just have to meet places.  We then decided that we would start walking to a certain point that looked half way in between to meet and get some dinner.  That worked great as we did ‘run into’ each other and actually saw some pretty good buildings and things along our walk.  Crazy.  So tomorrow we are meeting at a famous bakery and begin our day touring.  It will be fun…but no card games in our presidential palaces!

We did end up on a nice square with a few eateries.  We chose a ‘wok stirfry’ place that was amazingly yummy.  They asked if we wanted to eat in a heated outside area on the square.  At the time, there was no indication that it would rain.  But sure enough, the wind came up and it began to rain pretty hard.  After eating it started to slow down.  But Ilene did not have an umbrella with her.  So they hailed an Uber.  We were by a metro station that got us to the train station and then we had a 10 minute walk to our hotel.  Fortunately the rain had stopped.  

Time for bed!

Ok…here are some pictures:

Denise took naturally to the party atmosphere in the Kronborg Castle.

Fish and Chips for lunch.  Awesome food in an awesome place in Helsingor.

The food hall at the Street Truck ‘Warehouse’ in Helsingor.

We climbed up 145 stairs to get this shot.  We are on top of one of the towers in the Kronborg Castle.

One of the larger steeples at the Kronborg Castle.

I believe this is one of the banquet rooms in the Kronborg Castle.

The Kronborg Castle.

We are standing by the inner mote that surrounces the Kronborg Castle.

These pastries that Denise was holding were amazing.  So buttery.  A heart attack maker.

The pastry board in the cafe where we bought the pastries.

Another banquet room in the castle.

King Tim and Queen Denise!  Don’t we look like royalty?

We loved the streets in Helsingor.

Hans Christian Andersen gravesite.

A pano of Helsingor.

Another shot of Kronborg Castle.  It sits right on the sea.

Another shot of Helsingor from the castle.

This is looking back at the Helsingor train station.

Our good friends made it having had a miserable travel day.  We were so glad to see them.  It’s going to be a fun trip!  I took the selfie…look at my focus!