Hotels Near London - Copenhagen a Baltic Cruise With a London Interlude - Part One,

A twelve day cruise of the Baltic on the Rotterdam and five nights in London, three nights in Copenhagen, it was the beginning of a twenty-one-day land/cruise trip: one night aboard the plane. A night flight from Miami aboard British Airways brought my friend John and me to Heathrow where we deboarded and waited in the massive new Terminal Five for a flight to Copenhagen.

Bountiful full buffet breakfasts were part of the price ($458 for the three nights for each of our singles). Very centrally located on the main drag Vester Voldgade, we stayed three nights at the Kong Frederik Hotel. Though I hadn't been there in forty-two years, he had been there for a week in 2008 as the take-off point for a repositioning cruise on the Crown Princess. It was not the first visit in Copenhagen for either John or myself.

A nice place to sit and relax, very attractive with glass roof, an enclosed courtyard, the hotel has a five story atrium.

One afternoon we had a lunch there. We had a fine dinner at Italiano, right off the Stroget through a gateway. That first night we turned to the left on our street and across from the City Hall and Tivoli Gardens we started down the pedestrian shopping street Stroget.

It's now long gone. Was held, a wonderful one-ring circus with great horsemanship, on my first trip to Copenhagen, around 1967, i think, next to it is the round building where. Off to the side of Tivoli is a big shiny silver ferris wheel that's fun to ride. A two by four block enclosed area in the very heart of the city, we walked around the perimeter of Tivoli Gardens, while waiting for our bus to show up. The first morning we took a bus tour of the city to get our bearings.

And the sound of bells are heard every fifteen minutes from different locations, copenhagen is a city of steeples and towers.

And Come Together, mama Mia, we saw advertised productions of Broadway shows: Les Miz, as we traveled around on our tour bus. You'll see American food chains everywhere with Seven-Elevens in abundance, 000 in Copenhagen itself, with 550, a country of 5 1/2 million, in Denmark.

" "Where did I leave my clothes, " and a woman familiar with the joke yelled out? "What is he thinking, the guide asked? In front of a museum a copy of Rodin's "Thinker" sits.

One of the country's leading writers, there is much mention of Hans Christian Andersen. But the city has kept the mold so they are able to recreate it, it's been beheaded twice by vandals. Of course we saw the iconic life-size Little Mermaid statue. A nothing to avoid, the changing of the royal guard at the palace is a let-down.

The areas near the waterways and canals seemed the most interesting. One night we enjoyed a good hamburger at the Irish pub Farrely's on Stroget. " We had a delicious fish (plaice) and chip lunch with remoulade sauce at the Christian V restaurant. Called "the naughty side, on the other side was the former red light district. It's a charming place to walk around on a clear day. A touristy spot: a long stretch of sidewalk restaurants on one side of a canal, we walked to the end of the pedestrian street and ended up at Ny Havn (New Harbor), after our bus tour.

And thrown about like a rag doll, whipped, spun, shaken, dropped precipitously, really thrilling daredevil rides for the young and brave of heart in which the human body is upended, it has a number of upscale restaurants. The amusement park like Disneyland, one afternoon we visited Tivoli Gardens.

Fireworks enliven the skies at night. Some with popular music others with semi-classical selections, and bandstands, beautiful plots of flowers, but most of the park is charming with a lake, some spots in the park were a little the worse for wear and shabby.

And people on bikes go whizzing along very efficiently, dedicated bike lanes are abreast of sidewalks. Perhaps millions of people ride bikes, hundreds of thousands. In Denmark you will see a bike culture.

We met a Swedish waitress who commutes to work every day to and from Sweden by bus. But there is also a bridge, boats go back and forth to Sweden. Eighteen per cent of the country's power comes from wind energy. Than any other country, the new type, denmark has more windmills.

One night a huge parade demonstration took place with many of the participants walking along in the parade wheeling their bikes. Where we saw students demonstrating, the University district, our hotel was near the medieval section and the Latin Quarter.

Some of the pews were like booths with one row facing the other. With no decoration or flourishes, stark-looking, which was very simple, we visited the Lutheran cathedral. The state church is Lutheran according to the Constitution.

Unfortunately a lot of the bars were so smoke-filled they were distinctly uncomfortable. And you'll see plenty of people enjoying their brewskis, bars and pubs are everywhere. Carlsberg beer is a local institution with Tuborg beer also popular.

The old Latin Quarter has the narrow streets and cobblestones that make it fun for wandering. Not modern looking monoliths, you'll see ornate buildings with character. Many of the old buildings are in the quaint Dutch Renaissance style with the ornate gables or peaks reminiscent of architecture in the Netherlands.

It's like large scale Disneyland with Tivoli Gardens at its core. Out-doorsy looking people, it's a pleasant looking place with thousands of bicyclers. And an old historic medieval-looking section, pubs, palaces, attractive with lots of fun-loving people dedicated to having a good time amid pleasant surroundings such as castles, copenhagen seems like a fairy-tale city: quaint, short-time visitor, to the casual.

It is a fairly good destination, but for the casual tourist, grundge, the homeless, druggies, of course like every city it has its seamier side: crime.