Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Canal Tour - Part One

A few weeks ago Jared was able to get a day off in the middle of the week because the ventilation system was down for his building. It ended up being a beautiful day, so we decided to go on one of the very popular canal tours downtown. These pictures are from the tour. I'm going to pretty much just label them becuase I was holding a VERY squirmy Ruby and taking pictures, so I didn't catch all that much of the backstory. Also, our tour guide repeated everything four times in English, German, Spanish, and Danish. You'd think that would be a good thing, but sometimes I had a hard time honing in on the language I knew best!


Several of the tour companies start here in Nyhavn. Even though the name means "New Harbor" it's actually one of the oldest in Copenhagen.


As you can see, Ruby was all ready for the sunny ride with her pretty sun hat. She always manages to get it pushed w-a-y up though so that it barely shades her face. Thank goodness for sunscreen.


Here's a picture of our very talented tour guide. I was so impressed that he could switch between 4 languages with ease. Of course he does do the same tour a zillion times a day!
The yellow house is one that Hans Christian Andersen lived in. H.C. Andersen and his fairy tales are probably one of the most well known parts of Denmark. He apparently loved the lively atmosphere around Nyhavn.

The white house is another of H.C. Andersen's homes. I can't even imagine how expensive these apartments would be today, but I suppose in his day there were a lot of undesirables down here.

You may have to click on the picture to get a good look, but this canal boat that we passed was FULL of Santas, Mrs. Clauses, and even a few reindeers. There was a big Santa convention out at Bakken for several days and apparently this was Santa's "Day in the Sun"!

The Copenhagen Opera House (Operaen) was just opened in January 2005. Designed by Henning Larsen, this world-class facility sits on the former Royal Naval Dockyard. This is where Jared and I were supposed to go a few months ago, but never made it! Hopefully we'll get the chance again some day.

Here is a picture of a motorhome in Christiania. Christiania is an autonomous community that started 33 years ago following the civil occupation of an unused area, then owned by the Ministry of Defence. It's sort of a "hippie commune" full of artists, environmentalists, etc. If you want to read more about Christiania, check out this website.

This is part of the Royal Danish Naval acadamy and shipyards. I really don't remember much about what they said, except that they do cannon salutes every morning.

This is H.C. Andersen's "Little Mermaid" as seen from the water. There are ALWAYS hoards of people crowding around the little mermaid which is rather odd I think. It's not that spectacular of a statue to be honest!

In this picture, you can see Amalienborg (where the royal family lives, at least part of the time). Amalienborg is made up of four mansions. They were originally supposed to be "guest residences" for visiting royalty. The day we went, none of the royal family was home--which is evident by the fact that there are no flags flying. The big dome in the background is the Marble Church. It has a huge dome, but feels somewhat like a masoleum inside... I didn't like it much!

Well, I think I'll end with that for now. Blogger doesn't seem to want me to add any more pictures so I'll finish the tour another time. Hope this wets your appetite to come see the sights and sounds of Copenhagen with your own eyes!

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