We left Stockholm, Sweden and boarded a surprisingly comfortable train headed to Copenhagen, Denmark. On the way we met a very nice young backpacker who taught us a Swedish card game called Plump (pronounced ploomp), which helped pass the time on the train.
Upon arrival, we found our way to our beautiful, large apartment and settled in with some beverages and planned the next few days' activities. We found Copenhagen to be extremely clean and friendly (unless you accidentally stand in one of the MANY bike paths throughout the city), and had some amazing places for views of the entire city.
One of the first things we did was climb to the top of this very tall church!
We were treated to beautiful views of the city from the top.
The last part of the climb was on the spire, which spiraled all the way to the very top of the tower. The last step was so small and narrow that we didn't really fit on it, but it was close enough to the top for us.
Walking around city center, the juxtaposition of Danish buildings and American fast food was very clear.
The Round Tower was another place for super views of the city! Instead of steps, though, to reach the top you had to walk up a spiraled ramp that was very reminiscent of the walk to the upper deck of Tiger Stadium. It was built for astronomical observations in the 17th century.
View from the Round Tower:
One of the things I was most excited about was visiting Kronborg Castle, which was a short train ride just outside the city. Kronborg Castle was the setting of one of William Shakespeare's most famous (and arguably his best) plays--Hamlet. Because Shakespeare died in 1616, this year was the 400th anniversary of his death, and they planned a special celebration called Hamlet Live at the castle.
Kronborg Castle! In the play it is called Elsinore.
Signs for Hamlet Live! Leah thought I was equal parts nerdy and ridiculous when I exclaimed the day before we went (after maybe a drink or two), "I just feel so lucky to be able to visit during this celebration!"
Hamlet Live had a cast of actors to play the main characters. They performed select scenes (in common English) from the play in various rooms of the castle. It was awesome to see both the historical features of the castle as a backdrop to the literary and theatrical action. This was Ophelia!
Here's Claudius (Hamlet's uncle/king of Denmark) and Gertrude (Hamlet's mom) in the final scene...right before everyone dies.
Here's Polonius (Ophelia's dad and the king's adviser) talking with Gertrude and Claudius:
And here's the final sword fight between Hamlet and Laertes (Ophelia's brother/Polonius' son):
One evening, we visited Tivoli Gardens, the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world. Because we didn't have time to visit the one in Sweden, we made some time to walk around, eat some food, and ride the swings.
Between rain showers Megan and I took a ride on the swings.
Twins!
Swing Selfie
One evening we took a boat tour around the canals of Copenhagen, which was quite fun! Some of the bridges were so low, you could reach up and touch the bottom of it! And along the canals, we saw the trademark colorful houses in that Scandinavian style that's so cute.
Megan and Leah enjoying the canal tour!
View of Nyhavn's adorable homes on the waterfront. The homes are mostly bars and cafes, but once upon a time it was very fashionable and expensive to live here. It's most famous resident was Hans Christian Anderson!
Speaking of Hans Christian Anderson, on my last day in Copenhagen I went to visit the statue of the Little Mermaid, a surprisingly small statue based on Anderson's famous fairy tale. As I was walking through the park, following the signs to see her, I passed a dozen tourist buses all lined up along the road. She's very famous!!!
I guess I arrived at just the right time, because when I got there, there was literally no one else there.
I got my requisite selfie as I was joined by a few Indian tourists, who were being screamed at by their guide that they were going to get left. He was crazy. I was glad I wasn't on that bus.
As I left, the hoards of tourists arrived, all clamoring to take their picture with the famous Little Mermaid.
As per usual, Megan, Leah, and I blocked out an afternoon for a food tour of the city. We ate SO much food, and got such great recommendations that we ate well for the rest of our trip.
Danish hot dogs!
Porridge has become such a trendy thing in Denmark, and for good reason! It was delicious! This one had mushrooms and was made with barley.
No food tour is complete without a stop at a dessert shop!
Open faced sandwiches at one of the oldest delis in town. This one was made with meatballs; there was another with pickled fish (not my favorite).
But what was my favorite??? This salted caramel ice cream made with liquid nitrogen. So so good.
The food tour ended with a ride on a rickshaw back to the starting point. This poor guy... he was struggling to cart us back after we had been eating for four hours!
Copenhagen was lovely and getting to explore it with my friends was really fun! It was a great way to end the summer. School started in mid-August and I have worked every single day until this week... I leave today for a Eurotrip! We are road tripping through the Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria to celebrate my 31st birthday! Back soon with tales of drinking beer at Oktoberfest, Czech-ing out tiny wine towns in Moravia, and twirling on the hills of Salzburg like Fraulein Maria.
When my friends and I started talking about where to take our next trip, we quickly narrowed it down to Spain or Scandinavia. After comparing calendars, we finally found a week where we could all take off and explore! That week happened to be in mid-July. Thinking about the outrageously hot weather in Louisiana, Saudi Arabia, and Spain in mid-July made the choice to go to Scandinavia actually very easy. We settled on visiting the cities of Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark.
With only 3 days between the end of the Romania trip and the beginning of our Scandinavia trip, it didn't make sense to fly all the way back to Saudi Arabia. I decided to just head up to Sweden and hang out in a small town until my friends arrived. Luckily, Sweden is dotted with tons of tiny, adorable towns to choose from. I decided upon Uppsala, a small university town about an hour north of Stockholm. What really drew me to this town was how bike-friendly it was and how adorable the requisite European church and castle in the town center were.
The Uppsala Cathedral, a Lutheran church on the university campus, on the most beautiful and clear day of the summer. The blue sky was incredible!
This is the largest church in all of Scandinavia!
The high altar in the church was quite beautiful!
You can definitely tell that this used to be a Roman Catholic church!
Inside the church is the tomb of King Gustav Vasa and some of his wives. He was a pretty important guy in Sweden in the 15th century.
The Uppsala Castle... not the most beautiful castle in the world, but it had a really interesting history and a pretty good tour.
These cannons outside the castle were positioned towards the church. This was not an accident. The king wanted to make sure everyone knew who was in charge!
Wandering around town, I came across this street sign which made me smile.
On the second day in Uppsala, I rented a bicycle from my hotel and took a ride to Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala), a really important archaeological area about 3 miles from town. This was first a sacrificial area for pagans as early as the Iron and Viking Ages, then a burial area for kings and other royalty.
There used to be between 2000-3000 mounds, but only a few remain today: three large ones, called the "Royal Mounds," and a few smaller ones.
Some traditional old homes surrounding the archaeological area.
The view from on top of one of the big mounds.
Then it was time to head back to Stockholm to wait for Leah and Megan to arrive. Unfortunately, their luggage didn't make it with them, but we made the best of it until it arrived! After finding our ridiculously tiny AirBnB apartment in central Stockholm, we headed out to a bar to have a drink and plan out the next few days in the city.
Leah's so fancy and wrote in a travel journal every day.
SkyView was a cool experience! We went up in a small pod on the side of the Ericsson Globe and got great views of the city!
Excited to go to the top!
One view of Stockholm from our pod.
We went to a few museums where Megan enjoyed the kid area where you got to dress up.
Okay, okay, we all liked dressing up. This was at the Postal Museum!
The Nobel Prize is also given out from Stockholm and had a really interesting museum.
All of the past winners have their picture and accomplishments on these cards that circulate around ceiling of the museum. There are almost 900 of them! They are in no particular order, so you just have to be lucky to see someone really famous like Einstein or Malala.
On a walk to dinner one night, we were treated to a lovely view with a hot air balloon!
On the Under the Bridges of Stockholm tour and on hold with the airline luggage people. The tour and the phone call were approximately the same length--about two hours. But their luggage eventually showed up!
Lovely Stockholm!
One of the days we took a really great food tour! This was our guide, Erik. We had a great time and even learned a Swedish drinking song!
The first stop was the reason we chose this tour. Reindeer mousse, bear, and elk sausage!
At another stop we had fish soup.
This super good stop had beef tartare! We returned to this place another night for drinks on their rooftop bar.
On another day, we were walking to a museum and came across this guy. So weird but hilarious!
OBVIOUSLY his wrapper is an American flag!!!
My favorite museum in Stockholm was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a warship that sank on its maiden voyage, after just 20 minutes at sea!
Over 95% of the ship is original! The boat is so big, the museum was built around it.
We took a ride to one of the other islands for dinner and dipped our toes in the Baltic Sea.
After visiting the Spirit Museum we had to try some spirits! Infused gin and tonic.
An amusement park right on the water!
After four days in Stockholm, we begrudgingly left beautiful Sweden and boarded a train headed for Denmark for the second half of our Scandinavian adventure.
