Bicycles, bicycles, bicycles

We arrived safe and sound in Copenhagen yesterday. Those transatlantic flights really take a lot out of a person. I think I faired a little better this year as I was able to sleep a little bit. We took the LRT and walked to our apartment in Fredericksburg where we were met by the owner Henrik who would appear to live here when he is not renting it out. He is a retired architect who is doing this as a side hustle. We kept awake as long as possible even doing an after supper Zombie walk. Andrew gave in about 7 and went to sleep waking up at midnight while the rest of us persisted until 8:30. Being a Saturday night the street in front of our house was quite noisy but I slept until 4:30. Madeline and Chris slept until 8.

So far if there is one thing that defines Copenhagen I would have to say the bicycle. I always knew the Danes were active bicycle commuters but I was absolutely stunned by the scale of things. The city is incredibly well set up with bicycle lanes everywhere. There are an incredible number of cyclists using the system. Everyone looks so fit and healthy on the bikes. On Saturday night everyone was elegantly dressed heading out on the town all on their bikes. They also like to use cargo bikes which you see people transporting their children, their girlfriends and their dogs. We were so motivated that today Sunday, we rented bikes and cycled around to see the sites. Highlight were Christiana a commune started by squatters on an unused military base in the 70s. It was hippy marijuana ville. Chris was told off for picking some bud growing up in what he thought was a public garden.Lots of tourists and gaunt looking men sitting around smoking and drinking Carlsberg beer at 10 in the morning. I am sure they were waiting to break the bud out. After an hour everyone decided the place was too seedy and we left.

We biked north through the harbour district to Amalienborg castle home of the royal family. The harbour was over run in tourists. We caught a little of the changing of the guard before biking north for lunch at St. Albans Anglican Church. A little bit of England here in Denmark. The little mermaid was just beyond St. Albans. We just had to follow the tour buses. The statue was prettier than I thought it would be. We headed south to Rosenberg castle. I thought everyone should experience one Scandinavian castle. It was filled with Royal family junk and the Royal jewels. We have been getting our friend Russell to buy us a souvenir for our trips from a garage sale in Edmonton these last couple years so we thought we would have him keep his eye out for some Scandinavian Crown Jewels for us this year. He was quite successful finding us beer steins from Germany.

Everyone was running out of steam so we biked back and returned the bikes at the rental shop and headed down to the harbour away from the tourists to swim in a 50 metre harbour pool with the locals. There was a 2 metre diving board which kept the little ones busy.

I figured we must have biked about 15 k and swam .5 km. And walked for about an hour. It was the Copenhagen triathlon.Read more