Checking out the Copenhagen waterfront from deck seven of our cruise.

We have roamed much of the way around Scandinavia, staying in hostels, an apartment, a sleeper cabin on an overnight train, and — last night — a cruise ship cabin.  Mostly we’ve been sleeping five to a room, and every night we’ve been sleeping in a new bed.

Here in Copenhagen we are looking forward to spreading out in one place for a bit.  We’re still sleeping six to a room, but we get this room, in probably the hippest hostel we’ve experienced so far, for three nights.

We are also excited because we have ponied up for three days of the Copenhagen Card, which gets us into all kinds of experiences and attractions, including a lot of museums, the famous Tivoli Gardens amusement park, and all public transportation.

With mystery packets in hand, we are now on the case.

In fact, we weren’t on the ground here for more than an hour when Jen and Zoe signed us up to solve a few mysteries.  A company has put together packets that mix historical crime information with famous city landmarks to add a little fun to sidewalk travels.   The packets were available for pickup right in the train station.  It’s on the Copenhagen Card, so we went for it.

Therefore, after storing our luggage in a locker at the New House hotel — just a few blocks from the train station and not quite ready to check us in — we headed toward a place called the Round Tower, where clues apparently awaited us.

Actually, the clues waited a little while, because it started to sprinkle and we decided to duck into a coffee shop.  Then, when the showers intensified, we headed into the nearest indoor activity covered by the Copenhagen Card.  As luck would have it, we were very close to a double attraction: Copenhagen’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum and the Hans Christian Anderson Experience.  They’re right next to each other, and they’re on the Card.

These kept us interested, and dry.  And possibly they gave us appreciation for wonders of the world at large, and for Copenhagen’s greatest contribution to children’s literature.  Remember, we just had coffee, so we were pretty much raring to go.  The rain just had to stop.  And it did!

A nook for resting on the way up the Round Tower

At the Round Tower, also on the Card, we wound our way up a spiraling cobbelstone ramp to a place designed to hold an observatory.  The tower pokes out over the surrounding neighborhood of old buildings and narrow streets.

See any ducks or dogs? Us neither.

It gives a nice view view of the surroundings, but, being in the center of the city, it probably isn’t that effective as an observatory anymore.  There is still a telescople up there, but we did not get to see it.

No clues were apparent from the top of the tower, so we eased our way back down to street level where…still no clues were apparent.  We were meant to be looking for a carving with three ducks and a dog.  It was supposed to be somewhere near the tower.  There were lots of people milling around, but not a lot of livestock.

We looked and looked until the coffee boost ran out totally, and a sizeable portion of us were dead on our feet.  By now our room was ready for us, so we walked back to the hostel and settled in.

It is a very cool place.  There are multiple bars, a restaurant, a workout facility, a yoga room, and an indoor soccer field.   It has people of all types staying there, but it is geared toward backpacking types.  There is a special dinner each night for people looking to connect with other travelers.  There are also special events and meet-up spots to allow solo travelers to connect with each other.

Our room had sixs beds, each mostly enclosed, with power hookups inside each little pod.  There is a bathroom and a shower — separate from each other — in the room.   It’s actually pretty good for a family if you rent the whole thing out.  So, that’s kind of the vibe of the place:  A lot of young single people and a bunch of families with young kids.  It is also very close to a lot of the downtown action.

We lugged our bags up to our room and lay them down to stay for a while.  Some of us snuggled into our bunk pods, and those of us with energy remaining headed out for more Copenhagen Card adventure.

This time, it was the nearby  National Museum, which occupied us with extensive exhibits on pre-historic Denmark and a Viking experience where we got to see a part of the longest Viking ship ever recovered.

They eventually kicked us out of the National Museum because it was closing.  Back at the hostel, we tried to sign up for the night’s special dinner, but it was already filled up.  (It turns out that we would have been out of place; the tacos were really meant for young single types.)  Instead, we dove into the slightly more expensive, but amply-stocked salad and pizza buffet that was on the other side of the restaurant.

After all that, some of us still had energy to go out looking for dessert.  Here, as in most parts of Scandinavia, ice cream is easier to find than murder clues.