Castle in the park

After a very full day of seeing Denmark we made it back to Copenhagen and headed to our hostel. We didn’t have any trouble finding it and quickly got settled in. The place was called Generator Hostel and I have to say that I had some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it was very clean, very new, had wonderful comfortable beds, only 4 people per room, a bathroom for each dorm room, some of the beds were not bunk beds, and it was decorated really nicely. Those are some pretty big positives. But there was a strange vibe to it. They didn’t allow you to bring in any outside food and there was no kitchen facility. In a country where a sandwich routinely costs about $10, it was very annoying to not be able to stock up at a cheaper grocery store and eat in. The hostel of course had a bar that sold food ($11 for breakfast!), and they were doing their very best to get you to spend money there. The other thing was that they advertised wi-fi, but in reality, the only place you could access it was in this same bar area. It made me feel as though they were quite desperate for me to spend money there. But all in all, the comfy bed made up for a lot.

Hostel in Copenhagen (my bed!)

Anyhow, we got a good nights’ sleep after staying up late to get some planning done and the next day we took a map from the hostel and were happy to see that it had a walking tour of the city marked on it! So we set off! The funny thing was, we had a map, but no information on any of the sights we would see. We tried to make things up, but in the end just enjoyed seeing the scenery and taking loads of photos.

The tour started out by taking us through a park that was right by our hostel. Since the weather was nice it was packed with people out enjoying the sun. We saw a palace, some churches, and lots of pretty buildings. Then we saw a free museum that looked really interesting, so we went in to take a look. It was the Museum of Danish Resistance and covered the years surrounding WWII. The exhibits were great and we spent an hour or so looking round. Highly recommended and everything is in English as well as Danish.

Rose Garden

Pretty brick church (Justin is in front, but really, really little)

A very typical street in Copenhagen

Next we headed to an old fort which is at one end of the city. It is fun to explore because it is shaped like a star with a raised part around the perimeter which you can walk along and look over the water and the city. Very beautiful.

Building a nest outside the fort

Pretty view on the bridge to the fort

Justin heads into the fort

Unfortunately at this point I started to feel a little sick, so we stopped by the famous Little Mermaid statue and the huge dome cathedral and then headed back to our hostel for a nap.  We walked along a canal which was full of people out at restaurants or just relaxing, enjoying the sun.

Inside the cathedral

Along the canal

Somehow I never really got going again after that nap. I did wake up long enough to go and find some food with Justin. We settled on Mexican food and had perhaps the least Mexican chimichangas ever. Tasty, but with a definite Danish flair.

The next morning we were up bright and early for our train to Stockholm. We had a scenic walk to the train station which had a couple of notable things. Firstly, we found the elephant shop. There are elephants all over the city which are decorated in a variety of styles. Turns out that there is a shop with elephant items related to this and the money goes to help protect the elephants. Being the elephant fanatic that I am I was very excited to get my very own elephant t-shirt!

One of the Copenhagen elephants

Secondly, we saw some very funny advertising.

Not very sure of themselves...

Thirdly, we saw some cool gargoyles.

Gargoyle!

Fourthly, we got a little selection of what we call danish pastries. They don’t seem to call them that in Denmark, but they do have them at all of the bakeries. We took our little bag of pastries and hung out in the 1^st class lounge in the train station (another Eurail perk) where they had all kinds of free coffee, chocolate, fruit, and wi-fi. That’s a good start to the day!

Pastries and first class goodies