I’ve been a little off my game on this Copenhagen leg of the trip.  We’ve all been a little tired, and I’ve been feeling like I was coming down with something.  (I thought it was Zoe’s cold, but — spoiler alert — it later turned out to be Covid, which I had successfully avoided for over three years.  I blame the stress caused by SJ Trains.)  As the family cruise director, I think my lack of energy caused a little bit of aimlessness and difficulty deciding what to do.  For today, our last day, I figured I needed to rally and come up with a clearer plan — and fortunately we were able to find a cluster of activities all in the same neighborhood.

We decided to continue our strategy of energy conservation, and again were able to successfully navigate the bus system.  (This is more due to how clear, helpful, and omnipresent the buses are here, rather than any particular skill on our part.  However, we did feel a little cooler when the group of tourists we were standing among all got onto one of those hop on/hop off red tourist buses, leaving us alone to get on the regular city bus.)

First on the agenda: Amalienborg Palace.  There are a few different palaces in the city and we didn’t have time to do all of them.  We picked this one pretty much just because it was in the neighborhood of some other things we wanted to see.  It’s the current residence of the Swedish royal family, and was worth a quick stop.  (We had another mystery adventure envelope for this place, but were too disheartened from our prior experience to even pull it out.)

Next up: cardamom buns.  These had been recommended to us as a Danish delicacy by our friends the Palmers, who visited recently.  They proved to be slightly more difficult to find than we expected, and we had also not gotten what you would call an early start — so by the time we had secured them, it was just about lunchtime.  So the buns went into a box to enjoy later, and we started casing the lovely historic harborfront neighborhood of Nyhavn for a suitable restaurant.  We quickly found that lovely harborfront neighborhood restaurants are (a) heavily dominated by fish, which at least one of our party won’t eat, and (b) not the most affordable.

Eventually we found an Asian restaurant off the main strip.  The main thing we’ll remember about it is the waiter, who was from Turkey and was single-handedly serving the whole place with much energy and enthusiasm.  He seemed to have a bit of a gambling problem, and was very interested in the soccer game that Nadia was trying to watch on her phone.  I’m not sure if he’d already placed a bet on it, or whether he called his bookie on the spot, but he was very anxious that two goals be scored by Nadia’s team.  Both he and Nadia were very celebratory when this happened.

Next up was a museum that the kids had picked out after reading about it on the Copenhagen Card website.  The Museum of Danish Resistance, detailing the history of Denmark during WWII, was not exactly an obvious choice, but it was actually a very cool place.  It was in a dim, high-ceilinged basement and consisted of a series of audio tours, accompanied by flicking black and white movie images projected on the concrete

Nadia, cardamom bun, and Little Mermaid

walls.  It followed the story of five different Danes during the war as well as the conditions of the country as a whole.  There were fun hands on activities like eavesdropping on conversations with an old-fashioned telephone switchboard, and decoding secret messages.  (Also, we later discovered that while in the windowless basement we seemed to have avoided a substantial rainstorm.)

The museum was right next to a large waterfront park, with an imposing fountain, pieces of an old fort, and a short walk to the famous Little Mermaid statue.  (This, as the Palmers had warned us, was not all that impressive and was also swarmed with tourists, but the walk there was pleasant and it proved to be a nice place to take a rest and enjoy our cardamom buns.)

Our planned dinner destination was somewhat nearby, but we weren’t ready for dinner yet.  Conveniently, there was a cool-sounding museum nearby, and another right near our dinner spot.  Better yet, Thursday was the one night of the week that the latter museum was open late, so we’d have time to do both and then roll into the dinner hour.

The first was the Design Museum of Denmark, and we all really liked it.  The exhibits were so diverse that it’s hard to sum them up.  It was a cool mixture of modern art, interior design, and social commentary, and well worth the time we spent there.

The second museum was on the other side of the harbor, so we had to take a ferry to get there.  Fortunately, as with all the other public transport that we’ve found here, this was well-run and easy to navigate.  It took us quite some time of scratching our heads and squinting at the signs to feel confident that we were going in the right direction, but we could actually see the sign from across the harbor so we really had no excuse for this other than tiredness and paranoia.

On the other side of the harbor, we found ourselves in a strange post-industrial part of town.  It seems to be in the process of gentrifying, but hasn’t quite gotten then yet.  The Copenhagen Contemporary museum was at the far end of a dreary street mostly populated by deserted factories, and did not at all seem like an area where you’d find a tourist attraction.  But we found this fit well with the vibe of the museum, which itself was built in a former welding factory.  This is another one that is hard to describe.  There were exhibits consisting of huge movie screens, giant sculptures, a pile of stuffed jeans for lounging, and much more.  It was a nice museum for avoiding overwhelm, because most of it was large rooms with only one or two things to look at.

We waited in line for this one “experiential” exhibit, not knowing what to expect.  After going into an antechamber and replacing our shoes with white cotton booties, we (along with 4 other people) climbed a set of lighted stairs and emerged into a cornerless tunnel flooded with different colors of light.  We were left to experience this for about 10 minutes, as the colors changed around us.  It was quite a unique experience!  Unfortunately no photos were allowed, but we would recommend a visit if you ever find yourself in Copenhagen.

Finally, dinner time!  On yet another recommendation from the Palmers, we were traveling to Reffen, just down the street from the museum.  It’s hard to describe this place.  It’s a little industrial looking shanty town, with winding alleys lined with shacks selling all kinds of delicious food from around the world.  We were having trouble deciding if it really was a ramshackle place that sprung up in old shipping containers and the like, or whether it was carefully constructed to look that way.  We decided it was probably the latter, but it was so well done that it was hard to be sure.  Several of us were reeled in immediately by the burrito place that had a spit out front of pork, roasting tantalizingly on a rotisserie.  Others got tofu and noodles, sandwiches, chicken satay, ice cream — it was a feast across the board.

We were thrilled when we found that there was a ferry route traveling most of the way back to our hotel, but alas — after waiting for a while and squinting at the signs again, we eventually determined the ferries were no longer running.  (We don’t really blame ourselves for how long this took, because while we were waiting about a dozen other people lined up behind us.  We assumed they knew what they were doing, and apparently they (unwisely) assumed the same of us.)  So it was back to the bus again, for one last night in our hostel.

With only today and tomorrow left in our trip, energy levels in some quarters have been dropping (though, impressively, Zoe and Nadia have had enough energy to go have a drink in one of our hip hostel bars on each night we’ve been here).  Last night there was a debate between members of the group who wanted to get out first thing in the morning to maximize sightseeing opportunities, and those who thought that 11am was a reasonable time to aim for.  (One consequence of the few late nights that we’ve had while traveling has been that we really haven’t completely adjusted to European time.  We’ve all mostly been up until 12 or 1 each night, even if we try to go to bed earlier.)  We compromised by agreeing to get out the door by 10am.

We came pretty close to making it, though not without some grumbling.  We figured that we needed to go into energy conservation mode, so we decided to take the bus to our furthest destination of the day, then gradually make our way back on foot.  (Luckily the buses here proved to be very easy to navigate, even though the driver invariably would just gesture to me impatiently anytime I tried to show our Copenhagen cards.  I guess they care more about keeping to the timetable than ensuring that riders have paid.)

We started out at the Botanical Garden, always one of the stops on our list.  As usual, the gardens allowed people to wander off and explore at their own pace, which is a nice break in the day.  This one had a series of tall greenhouse-type buildings built in the 19th century, containing tropical plants, as well as a butterfly house full of all different species.

At the end of the garden was a small natural history museum, which had a lot of very

Dramatic sky over Copenhagen. We found the weather in Scandinavia to be very unpredictable — pretty much every day veered suddenly between sunshine and rain multiple times.

cool wildlife photography.  When exploring museums, Zoe is known for wanting to read every sign on every display — while Nadia tends to move through practically at a jog.  So this time Zoe and I went to the museum early, while the others spent more time in the garden.  This seemed to work out well for everyone.

After the garden and museum, we decided to swing by the nearby Round Tower again, to have another crack at solving the mystery puzzle that we’d failed to progress on the previous day.  The good news is that

Bob did eventually find the dog and three ducks carving that we’d been looking for the previous day.  The bad news is, we found ourselves completely unable to do anything else.  I don’t know if the puzzle was really hard or if we’re just overtired, but we struggled with every clue and eventually gave up in defeat after walking up and down the same street five times looking for a particular address and not finding it.  Sadly the case of the missing money lender and the bloodstained briefcase will have to remain unsolved.

Going under one of the many, many low bridges

Next up was a more restful canal boat tour through the canals and out into the harbor.  Copenhagen claims the cleanest harbor in the world, and there are frequently docks and ladders where people can jump right in to swim.  It was initially quite disconcerting seeing someone suddenly jump into the water right from an urban dock, but a pretty great feature for the locals.  We also saw plenty of paddleboarders and kayakers.  The waterfront itself is beautiful as well, with colorful buildings and stone palaces, and old church spires rising in the distance.

Nadia got some unholy “ice cream burrito” conconction where the “tortilla” was crushed cotton candy.

Our final destination was the one that the kids have been most excited about — Tivoli Gardens, one of the oldest amusement parks in the world.  It’s a strange and lovely mixture of beautifully landscaped, peaceful gardens — and giant metal rides, with people screaming their heads off.  Zoe and Lanie elected to go with the unlimited ride pass, while Nadia (who does not like heights or speed and gets sick on things that spin around) chose to spend her budget on various food items instead.  The park was supposed to close at 10 but many rides ended up being open until 11, so they really got their money’s worth.

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.