Cathy & Sabrina come to Copenhagen

Cathy and Michael flew to Italy where they caught a Mediterranean cruise.  After the cruise they did a bit of sight seeing in Italy.  Then Michael went back to California to take care of his business but Cathy continued on her European tour with her daughter, Sabrina who was already in Europe because of her international study courses.

Sabrina and Cathy managed to throw Copenhagen into the big mix of countries to visit.  In my "cool" and "in the know" way, I volunteered to book them a room.  Who better than me - since I live here.  Turns out I messed up big time.  I booked an apartment across the harbor from us - a 12 minute walk.  It is the most expensive apartment complex on the harbor so I felt comfortable booking the room without seeing it.  It turns out we were all disappointed with the closet-size box with single bed.  It was advertised as big enough for 2.  Silly me for thinking 2 people.

But enough of that.  Cathy and Sabrina arrived at CPH Friday evening.  They were coming from Prague.  In Denmark we can follow in real time on TV all the planes that land at CPH.  They landed early so I quickly left the house and drove out to the airport.  I got to the airport before they got their luggage.  Once they came out from customs, I drove them to our apartment where we had a nice barbequed salmon dinner.  We chatted and then we walked from here to the other side of the harbor to the apartment rental.



bike rental

The following day I had breakfast ready for the girls.  Then we crossed the harbor again and continued on over the railroad tracks to the first shop which is a bike rental shop.  We hopped on our rented bikes and then through the city we peddled.  I had a huge route planned out.  We rode extra slowly.   Not because it has been 10 years ago that Cathy was last on a bike but because there was so much to see and I wanted to be sure they could see it all.  Eventually we stopped for a late lunch and we really took our time eating.  The ride was quite long so we completed only half of the tour before heading back to our apartment where we had dinner again on our balcony overlooking the harbor.
 

Fredriksberg Castle in Fredriksberg Park in the city of.....



we ride through Carlsberg brewery. 
if your market has a nice selection
 of imports then be sure to try the elephant beer -
black can with gold printing.

lunch at west bridge square



Rosenborg castle in the King's Garden.

Navy Church on left - Stock Exchange center - dept. of Finance on right.
 

BBQ - shrimp boat and pork tenderloin

Day 2 was a repeat of breakfast at our place and the plan was to drive up along the beautiful coast line to Kronborg, better known as Hamlets Castle.  But the weather looked like rain so I made a change of plans and we drove to Fredriksborg Castle instead.  After the castle tour we had lunch at a near by restaurant and by this time the sun had finally come out.

Fredriksborg Castle in Hillerød

beautiful fountain before going into the castle.

lunch near the castle.

now the sun has come out over the castle.

on the way back from the castle I drive by one very
important site that we were supposed to see by bike:
The Little Mermaid.
In the background is the Royal Yacht.

Day 3 was a walking tour day.  After a quick breakfast we went down stairs and across the street to catch the waterbus to the city center.  My plan was to get off at Nyhavn but since we had to cut our bike ride short, I managed to squeeze in some of the sites by getting off of the waterbus 2 stops later.

waiting for the bus - water bus that is.
the bus is the same yellow as the city buses. 
you can ride the train, bus, metro and waterbus on the same ticket.

the white building on the right is the rental apartment.
our apartment is on the left (not pictured) and to the left of
the round building.
the bridge in the background is the bridge between the 2 apts.
12 minutes to walk from apt. to apt.

Amalie garden at the winter palace.
dome of the marble church in background.

Royal Play House on left.
Royal Opera House on Right.

zoom in on sign above umbrellas -
it tells that Hans Christian Andersen
lived here.

Nyhavn - New Harbor
but really old - trendy spot for both Danes and tourist.

time to take a break at Norden café on main pedestrian street.

I got the pix but didn't notice who is sitting in the back seat.
someone said it was the queen.  we know now she was her.

It turned out to be a very hot day and it made all the walking seem extra strenuous.  Though it's a small town, there is so much to see and one of my favorite spots to show tourist are the Royal reception rooms.  Not a museum - but a real palace.  Today the queen was in so the tours were unfortunately canceled.  Eventually I worked in other points of interest before we got on a bus to go back to the apartment so the girls could freshen up before going out again.  The bus ride was only 3 or 4 stops and then a very short 3 or 4 minute walk.  This time it was me who walked over the harbor to get back all the way.
 

the parliament building where the Royal
reception rooms are.  But thanks to the queen
she ruined my guided tour plans.

Town Hall square with Viking Horn Blowers.



After a short rest, the girls now walked to our place and then we all got in the car and drove out to Tivoli.  There have been a lot of hot afternoons the week before the girls arrived and unusually dry weather so the flowers that are normally beautiful in the gardens had that look where you know you should have thrown them out at least 2 days ago.  But we had a tasty dinner in the park  and snapped a few pictures before the park closed.

entrance to Tivoli Gardens.



Pantomime Theater

dinner at The Ditch or Grøften in Danish.

Sabrina wins 2nd prize at Per the Postman.

restaurant Nimb and it's a bakery too from outside of the gardens.

The next day it was packing day.  I drove over to the rental apartment and picked up the girls bags and carry-on's, the extra guest bed I lucky had, and a few other odds and ends that needed to come back.  The car was full of stuff so the girls walked back to our apartment and got there before I was able to drive all the way around the harbor.  We had a bite to eat on the balcony before I had to drive the girls back to the airport.  After I dropped them off I drove to the next parking lot to go to work.  But I was a bit early for work so I just stayed in the car and listened to the radio.   Suddenly the phone rang.  The number showed up on my screen with 39 as the country code.  39?!!  Who could possibly be calling me from country 39 and which country is that anyway? 
Hello? this is Eddie.
Hi Uncle Eddie, it's Sabrina.
Ooh Hi Sabrina what's up?
Our flight is canceled.

and OMG was as far as I could go.  I didn't know what to do.  I wanted to help them but how.  And I couldn't call back to Sabrina's calling card number because I have my phone set up to not be able to call outside of Denmark.  I also had my phone set up to not receive calls while I was in Madrid so I guess I only set up my phone half way to how it used to be.  So I tried instead to send messages on FB.  I just learned how to do that. Sabrina and Cathy just taught me 2 days ago how to do it.  But was I doing it right?  and my battery was almost dead.  Well silly me, I was just a parking lot away so I quickly zipped off to terminal 2 and found the girls standing in a very slowly moving line to find out what to do.

The guy behind the counter was not really helpful at all.  We all agreed he was as cute and as dumb as a button.  Cathy and Sabrina were on their way to Paris, just a short 2 hour flight away.  The suggestion was to go to Milan or Geneva or to London and from either of those places, take the train the rest of the way.  What a nightmare this was going to be.  I'm used to this kind of thing but that's because I fly stand-by.  And one of the other possibilities was to take a hotel in Copenhagen and fly out the next day or more realistically, the next available flight.  The ticket agent, Mr. Buttons, said that all the flights were booked for the next 3 days. 

Sabrina and Cathy didn't ask me what I thought.  Probably because I messed up on the hotel room, they didn't want to ask me what to do and I surly didn't want to make another boo boo and give my advice.  I was thinking that flying to London was going to be the best bet because it was an English flight company and they would most likely get better service there in London than what they were getting in Copenhagen and the train between London and Paris is a natural.  It turns out that, that was what they choose to do.  Later that evening close to midnight they had sent me a FB message saying they had finally arrived to Paris.  Almost a whole day for a 2 hour flight.  But luckily they made it and I am sure waking up in Paris made everything OK again.

So the trip was short and sweet and we enjoyed sooo much having both Cathy and Sabrina here.  I'm guessing Sabrina will be back very soon as she has found out what many Danes say in the words of Hans Christian Andersen:  To travel is to Live.

these are just a few of the 190 pic I took.
to see the others, click here to go to my shutterfly site.
or directly to the pix