Day 4

It’s Jessica! Another successful day in Copenhagen complete! Our wakeup call was 6:30am, which is sleeping in for us. There was leftover food from last night, so while we got ready, we munched on bread, meat and cheese. We left the apartment around 8, and made the short walk to the station, where we caught our train just in time. It was a short ride to Copenhagen Central and we were able to drop our bags off quickly. Since we haven’t had a lot of local cuisine yet, and since it was our last day in Denmark, we set out to find a bakery. We found one right across the street from the station. We got 3 different pastries from Andersen’s Bakery, vanilla custard, raspberry, and rhubarb. They were delicious! After we finished eating, it was back to the metro and on our way to Rosenborg Castle. We got there a little early, so we walked through the botanical gardens and park that was right across the street. By the time we got to the castle, the line was already building up. As soon as they opened the gates, a sea of people flooded in. After another 20 minutes in the ticket line, we were in! This castle was built in the early 1600’s for Christian IV. This is also the place that houses Denmark’s crown jewels. We went through the different floors and had a very detailed pamphlet that described what all of the rooms were used for. The cool thing about this castle is had lots a little side rooms filled with different things like mirrors, glass sculptures, plates and even tiles from Delft (we recognized those right away from our trip to the Netherlands in 2010). Christian IV even had a “trouser wetting chair” which I imagine he would use to pull pranks on his guests. A wooden lever would pop out from the arms to keep the person in the chair, then the seat would spurt water onto their pants. He was quite the jokester. After making our way through the main palace rooms, we headed to the basement to look at all of the crown jewels. There were crowns, necklaces, swords, scepters and even a golden baptismal set that is still used today for all of the royal children. It was pretty cool seeing diamonds, sapphires, and rubies the size of a penny and wondering just how much something like that might cost. We left the palace and headed out to the gardens. Even though it was still pretty early, our feet and legs were already starting to hurt. While walking through the gardens, we took a quick break on one of the benches. Once we felt like our feet could carry on, we snapped a few more pictures, then left the castle to head over to Amalienborg Palace to watch the changing of the guard. Everyone was lining up by the time we got there so it was only a matter of minutes before the “show” began. I will say it was a little anticlimactic. The new guard marched in (from Rosenborg) and seemed to switch places with the old guard by walking in an oval-ish path. Then we waited for another 10 minutes while nothing happened. Just as we were about to call it, another group of guards marched out of the palace and into the street (I imagine they were returning to Rosenborg). We quickly left so we could stop by the Marble Church, which was right across the street from Amalienborg. Since everyone was still hanging out by the guards, we were able to slip in and get some pictures before it became too crowded. At this point our feet were dying again, so we made our way to a local bar for a quick drink and snack. The Palae Bar is a real local hotspot (according to TripAdvisor) where you get to go into the kitchen and pick your food out. We decided it was time to try something that was authentic to Denmark, Smorrebrod. What is this, you might ask? Well, it’s an open-faced sandwich with a variety of meats and toppings. Some things look recognizable like eggs, ham, and bacon, but others are very questionable if you are not a local. We went with the relatively safe option. I had egg and bacon while Adam had what appeared to be ham and peas. Both had weird sauce on them. Overall, not half bad. I could eat it again! We finished our food, and made the short walk to Nyhavn Canal. When we went there on Thursday, we noticed everyone was sitting on the sides of the canals and drinking a beer, wine and even champagne. We figured this is what the locals do when the weather is nice. Not wanting to alter our “authentic” Danish day, we decided to join them. We sat along the canal, sipping on a few drinks, and munching on some leftover cheese from the morning. It was very relaxing and necessary because our legs were still throbbing. After about an hour, we left in hopes of seeing Christianshavn one last time. But while we were walking out, we get sidetracked by an ice cream stand. Not having had ice cream yet on this trip, it felt like the perfect opportunity to get some. Adam got hazelnut (his go to) and I got pistachio (my fav!) We took the ice cream with us on our walk to Christianshavn. It was short, but our feet gave out again. We decided to continue our canal sitting and people watching in this part of town. Another 45 minutes passed and it was time to say goodbye to Copenhagen. We took a quick subway to the main train station, grabbed our bags, bought our plane dinner (turkey, bacon and curry-mayo sandwiches from 7-11) and then hopped on the train to the airport for our flight to Zagreb.  The ride was quick and before we knew it, we were through check in and security with over an hour to kill. We walked around for a little bit, before heading to our gate and boarding our plane. If I had to guess, we are somewhere over Germany right now. Once we land, we’ll get our rental car, drive to our Airbnb, and call it a night! Excited for Croatia tomorrow! Enjoy the pics :)