Hazel and Ted in Scandinavia

Checked out after breakfast and left luggage in hotel. Actually then did 10k steps by the time we returned! Walked through the “posh” part of Copenhagen with the likes of Tiffany’s, Gucci, Breitling, etc to be gazed at as well as discovering lovely squares, fountains and churches which we hadn’t seen before. Walked to the harbour and took a canal trip which was really lovely and put areas in perspective. Visited Amalienberg Square again just in time to see the changing of the guard then walked between two of the 4 palaces to beautiful gardens and fountains. From there to the Marble Church, 3rd largest dome after St Peter’s in Rome and St Paul’s in London. We took the Metro then to nearer our hotel and found the Cathedral where Fred and Mary were married 21 years ago-very interesting to me. The weather is perfect here today-sunny but not too hot. Walked back to the hotel and hung around for the coach to the airport.

I really don’t know how these things happen to us….
We get to Copenhagen Airport and Shane goes in with the Gatwick lot to help them get sorted. The Manchester Fifteen walk on to Terminal 3. Surprisingly, no-one can sort out their check-in on the automated machines so we queue up at the SAS desk, much to Shane’s obvious irritation and maybe a bit of disbelief that not one of us can operate the automatic check-in. Then it appears there is an “issue”….. SAS tell us we aren’t on their flight list but should have flown yesterday. Shock horror all round with Shane on his mobile to Riviera Office toute suite. After an hour of Shane being on his mobile phone he tells us that Riviera insist their paperwork has us on today’s flight but SAS beg to differ. More deliberations ensue. We should have flown about 5.30pm but negotiations resulted in 8 of us going with SAS at 8.40 pm and the remaining 7 at 8.50 pm with BA BUT both flights to Heathrow. Lots of expletives all round.
Suffice it to say that the SAS8 and the BA7 all made it back to Heathrow and were reunited in Terminal 5. A representative from Riviera who looked about 14 took us to the coach and at the time of writing (23.45) we are speeding up the M1 towards Manchester, ETA 2.08 am.
Actually arrive 2.30 am and got a taxi from T1 arrivals. The M60 was a desert! Back by 3.30 am and in bed for 4. Must have been quiet as James didn’t realise we were home when he got up for work.
Enjoyed both countries-very “white”, ordered, prosperous, litter-free, no swearing or disorder in the streets that we saw. No doubt there are problems behind the facade with immigration and drugs as we saw on a recent tv programme but we were there for such a short time and not exposed to anything like that. Small populations-easy for the UK visitor as people switch seamlessly to speak English-long histories of power seeking monarchs, conquering Vikings and collections of wealth. Loved it!
Footnote: the delightful Riviera lady rang and gave us £200 each back plus taxi cost and food costs at airport! Worth being delayed for! 😬もっと詳しく