Hi Sailor-baby!
We’re coming into the home stretch! A great trip, but I’m ready to pack my bags
and come home to you pretty soon, I just need a few more souvenirs!
Copenhagen is a terrific city (you thought I was going to
say “wonderful, wonderful” didn’t you?)!
It’s as clean as a city can get, even the canals are hardly
polluted. The number of bicycles
outnumbers the number of citizens, and nobody seems to lock their bikes, they
just stand them over to the side of the road; we even saw a bicycle standing
there with groceries in the basket and nobody (except us tourists) gave it a
second look. What a nice surprise – wish
we could all live like that!
Well I did it, I finally had my picture taken with The
Little Mermaid, and a good thing too – they are talking about moving the statue
further out into the water because right now it’s located on the banks of the harbor
(very close to where the ship was berthed) and the rocks can be very slippery
and dangerous. If they put it farther
out people won’t try to stand next to it and get hurt in the attempt. It’s not a great photo, but it’s another
thing to cross off my list! Copenhagen
is building a new cruise ship port – due to open next year – so I don’t know if
cruises will continue to berth so close to the famous statue honoring Hans
Christian Anderson. According to our
guide the statue was commissioned by a former prince of Denmark who fell in
love with a ballet dancer. He wanted her
to pose for the statue but she was shy, so the statue has her head, but the
body of the sculptor’s wife.
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| Amalienborg Square |
Denmark doesn’t seem like a particularly religious country, although
it was actually founded by a bishop (Bishop Absalon in 1167), there were far
fewer churches than I’ve seen at other stops, but they do require one thing of
their queen (or king) – that she be Lutheran - as she is head of the Danish
Lutheran church.
The first king to make Copenhagen his capital was
Christopher the Bavarian in 1443, and a succession of strong kings after him waged
war against the traditional enemy – Sweden - for the best part of 200
years. Growing up in the US I never
thought of Sweden as menacing or threatening, but it seems that most of this
part of the world was under their control or fighting to keep from being under
their control for hundreds of years. Russia and Sweden were the two
super-powers on Northern Europe.
The most popular king – historically – was Christian IV
(1588-1648), known as the Renaissance King for all his contributions to town
planning and architecture. Copenhagen
didn’t fare so well in the 18th century; a third of its residents
died from plague and fires destroyed a great number of buildings. I think this was about the first tour on this
cruise where they didn’t speak extensively about WWII, but there is a museum
dedicated to the resistance movement. Our
tour simply pointed it out, we did not get to see the museum, I understand it
can be pretty grim.
According to our guide the social welfare system is so
strong in Denmark that about 50% of people don’t work; those who do work pay
something like 51% in taxes to support all this welfare, and there is a 25% VAT
tax in addition on all items you purchase.
I think she was trying to work on our sympathies as I overheard another English-speaking
tour guide later telling HER group that unemployment was at about 10%.
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| Submarine plant turned apartment building. |
A couple of other interesting sites – this apartment
building which used to be a submarine building plant, the royal yacht, a private yacht that looks like a gun ship and the Copenhagen’s
version of a school bus!
Sailor, I’m heading down to my cabin to start organizing my
things: one more port, then one sea day and I’ll be back on a plane coming home
to you!!! Get ready to race me to the
couch!!!
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| School Bus! |
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