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Horace-Benedict de Saussure monument at Chamon...

Horace-Benedict de Saussure monument

Just for a change, I awoke having had virtually no sleep. I tidied my room as best I could and went to hand the key back to Andy. Very kindly, he offered me to help myself to the buffet breakfast so I nabbed a yoghurt and a drink before catching the next train up to the airport.

Nothing exciting about the journey, thankfully. I snoozed for the short flight and landed all fine and dandy in Geneva shortly afterwards. I could have done with a much longer flight to catch up on kip!

I walked round to the charter terminal where I met up with our staff guiding guests onto coaches. One was just about to leave for Chamonix so I hopped on board and – yup – slept until we pulled into the town.

This time I made the sensible decision of dumping my stuff in the flat before getting lunch and then going to the office. Where I remained till the early hours sorting out quite a few issues. As usual.

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Copenhagen in a day

Danish Windmill

Danish Windmill

I’m not one to shy away from a walking challenger. I pretty much blasted both Paris and Rome in two days each on foot. And then there was that little stroll from Monaco to Newcastle in 2007.

So today I took on board the guidance I’d been given by my hosts and pinpointed the things to see. Using the very handy tourist map, I set off into town.

Briefly, I located the Amalienborg Palace, Little Mermaid, opera house, Royal Palace (complete with guards wearing busbies), canal area and then moved into a different “sector”. I have to say I wasn’t too impressed with the opera house, and I know a lot of Danes aren’t either. Frankly, it looks like a vaguely modern building surrounded by a 1970’s concrete car park. It’s certainly not a patch on similar structures in Sydney, Singapore and (yes, I mean this) Gateshead.

Mermaid and me

Mermaid and me

The Little Mermaid is a strange kind of tourist attraction. One statue amongst many in the town, I don’t know why it gets so much more attention, but it’s nice enough. I just made it there before a day-trip bus arrived and it became surrounded by foreigners in scarves and gloves.

The canal area is modelled on Amsterdam, at least I think so. If it’s not, it’s very close to it aside from the houses not tilting forwards at the top. All gaily painted and pretty with expensive restaurants on the ground floor.

The “sector” I mentioned above was Christianshavn. Copenhagen is divided into different zones, or sectors. Call them what you will. They’re all very different and the fact you’ve crossed from one to another is often incredibly obvious without any signposting or anything.

Lovely Danish church

Lovely Danish church

Christianshavn is to the east of the “City” area, and historically a place for dossers and the like. It’s certainly not a bad area, from what I saw of a part of it, but not quite as classy as the City. There are some nice bakeries, and a serene coastline around the southern end which seems popular with dog-walkers and joggers.

I made my way back round into the City and through it to the Nørrebro area. As I approached the bridges which lead into this sector, a police van loaded with what looked like riot squad zoomed past at fill tilt, blues and two flashing and screaming. Then another. And another.

I’d say by the time I was 200m into the area that fifteen or more of these vehicles had gone past me. In the direction I was headed.

Cool.

Danish flag

Danish flag

As I said, you can spot the difference in areas quite easily. As soon as you’re over the bridge into Nørrebro, the atmosphere changes. There are a lot more immigrants (mainly Asian and South Asian), the shops are cheaper, grafitti and damaged shop fronts are more common and the restaurants are a lot more varied.

I plodded on, checking prices of falaffel and kebabs until I saw a parade marching towards me. I crossed over to get out of the way and watched a group of maybe 30 people chanting anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Semetic slogans. Obviously a reaction to the whole Gaza Strip thing ongoing.

A hundred metres or so further on I saw where they’d started from, easy to see by the now-reduced collection of police vehicles. Right by a Jewish cemetery. I guess they’d decided to take their frustrations out on the dead. Very tough of them. Oh, and a McDonalds, as the Bangladeshi guy running it was so obviously an American in disguise.

Frankly, it seemed more an excuse for a bunch of kids to throw things and cause a disturbance than a genuine political statement. The fact they were all grinning as they walked past took the edge of any claim they could have about the seriousness of their complaint.

I doubled back to one of the restaurants I’d seen and settled down with a cheap falaffel and an expensive Coke. Good falaffel, but not a patch on the one I got in Eilat!

Frozen streets

Frozen streets

As night fell, I walked up into Linda’s neighbourhood in time to catch up on email and have some dinner. Another of her friends came over and we had Persian rice, mixed veg and wine. Really nice!

Afterwards, we’d arranged to meet a bunch of Couchsurfers for drinks. We arrived late (Linda organised it – she was allowed to be late) and we then struggle dto find anywhere we could sit and talk. Everywhere was noisy and jammed full. Eventually, we settled on a place that was more of a café than a bar, but which happily accommodated the dozen or so of us as we drank and chatted.

I went to pay my final tab only to find that none of my cards would work in their reader (they did say they took Visa), so I had to wander off to locate an ATM. Annoyingly, I therefore ended up having to withdraw far more than I needed. Ah well, all changed at the airport later.

We all parted company around 2am as the smaller bars closed. Some drifted on to other clubs, but I was bushed and walked to a train station with one of the guys I’d been chatting to. As ever, it had been a mixed bunch with Danes, Brits, Dutch and even a Greenlander cropping up.

Around 3:30am I arrived at a small hotel near the airport. The overnight staffer was the chap I’d been in the pub with the night before and he swung me a free room so I could get 2-3 hours’ sleep before my flight.

What a star!

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Iceland to Denmark

Copenhagen Airport

Copenhagen Airport

As I said in the last post, I got no sleep. Around 4:25, I picked up my stuff and walked from Gulla’s to the long-distance bus station, maybe 10 minutes’ walk away. It was easy to then just jump onto the first airport service and drop into a fairly deep slumber.

I awoke as we approached Keflavík Aiport, disembarked and checked in. Thankfully, everything went like clockwork and I boarded my flight dot on time.

And fell asleep.

Copenhagen airport was fine, but the traveller information could have been more helpful around the train ticket office. Thankfully, between the information provided me by Linda and the very helpful woman at Tourist Information, I got the right ticket.

Copenhagen City Hall

Copenhagen City Hall

The airport is three zones from the city, so instinct says you need to buy a 3-zone “clipper” ticket if you want to save cash. Well, save more – get a 2-zone. And clip it twice before you get on the train. This is even cheaper and perfectly above board. You don’t have to hop out on the way and clip it at another platform, as long as you take two notches out of it before you board.

When I asked the Tourist Information lady what the exchange rate she was, she actually aologied as it was “only” 8 Danish Crowns to the pound. The usual rate is nearer 11 or 12. Hardly her fault! Mind, it did make things quite pricey.

I’d intended to store my luggage at the train station in the city and go wandering, but at £5 a locker I decided I could do with the exercise and set off with my pack on my back. I’d picked up a map of the city with a self-guided tour on it and decided to make my way around based on that.

Niels Bohr

Niels Bohr

I did stop briefly at the Tourist Information to find out where the central library was, though. They offer free wi-fi and I had my laptop with me, so it was useful to know. And also where the nearest KFC was for lunch. I have a tradition to maintain!

The KFC was just off the city hall square. There are a load of fast food restaurants in Copenhagen, but they’re not a cheap way to eat. My regular sized meal (they don’t do large) was around two pounds more than I’d expect to pay for it in the UK. When I eventually got it as they didn’t accept Visa so I had to go off ATM-hunting.

In fairness, that was only due to them not having a newer swipe machine. Most everywhere else I went happily took my Nationwide card. Almost. But that’s tomorrow’s post.

After munching, I walked a little further up the road past some shops, and the old University with it’s collection of busts outside. I only took a photograph of Niels Bohr as I’m a physics geek.

Around the same area are the Round Tower and Cathedral. It’s a pleasant area, but watch out for cyclists! It’s easy not to hear them as you step out to cross the road.

City Hall Square

City Hall Square

I was flagging so I looked for the library. The main entrance is on Krystalgade, and nobody queried a bedraggled beardie with a backpack locating a desk and sitting down to use the wi-fi. Nice library, too, with many books in English. I found that everyone I spoke to in Copenhagen spoke superb English. This is ideal when you’re only in a place for a day or so as it’s barely long enough to pick up any of the local lingo.

After a couple of hours (really, I was just too tired to plod around), it was time to meet Andy for a couple of drinks and a chat in a bar. We hooked up at the City Hall and he directed me to a pub nearby with one of the most attractive barmaids I’d ever seen.

Courtesy of the loopholed anti-smoking regulations, the area near the bar was heavy with filth while the place we were sat only got the occasional whiff. The rules are that any are larger than 40m² must be non-smoking. So pubs put up partitions so that they had areas smaller. And also argued that spacetaken up by tables, chairs, bar tops and the like didn’t count towards the surface area. And the government let them so virtually every bar allows smoking. Great.

While I was waiting for my first beer, a Danish woman in her 40’s started chatting to me. I apologised for my lack of Danish and she went on in perfect English about how she liked my beard, but how I should shape it and thin it out a little. I told you their English was good.

Danish beer

Danish beer

We (Andy and I, not the beard-lady) chatted for a couple of hours before I got a text from Diego who I’d made a loose arrangement to meet, but couldn’t find where he was. He joined us outside the City Hall and we walked closer to the station to a bar called Jernbanecafeen. This was completely smoky, but I was promised I’d see “real” Copenhageners here, as opposed to the trendy lot, businessmen, tourists and the like.

It’s certainly a place with character, covered in railway memorabilia. They also do their own beer,7 Ekspressen, which can only be purchased on the premises. There we chatted (and watched people snogging) until Linda arrived. The original plan was to go straight to hers, but she relented after I offered to buy her a drink and a chance to meet a couple more Couchsurfers.

We had a great chat there until late on when we had to head off to catch the train. One word of warning – there’s a 100 Crown minimum purchase on card at the bar here, but they’ll happily let you put your Visa or whatever behind the bar and run up a tab.

Back at Linda’s, I spent a good couple of hours scanning and tidying her laptop for her. It seems to be a common way for me to pay “rent” to my hosts! I think I finally collapsed on the spare mattress around 4am. I really should sleep more, but I’m having too much fun!

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Bless Reykjavik, Ísland… hej København, Danmark

DenmarkStub2

Just a quickie. I will update with full details of the last 2 days in Iceland when I get the chance, but I’m currently safely ensconced in the Copenhagen Central Library using their free wi-fi. I’m off to meet a fellow couchsurfer in 30 minutes, and my host at 9:30 tonight.

I think I will sleep well. Rather than getting 2-3 hours’ sleep last night, I instead opted to stay awake until my coach left for the airport. As such, I’ve had something along the lines of 3 hours of “snooze”-level rest so I’m a bit pooped…

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