North Sea Serenade – Copenhagen/Malmo/Lund

Today we got up so early after our late, late night last night.  We had to be in the theater (the starting point for tours) at 8 AM but until 8:45 we sat and waited because we were apparently the last cruise ship to come into the port and there was a big delay.

So we went for the obligatory visit to the Little Mermaid statue – she’s apparently been beheaded twice and is now filled with concrete so that nobody can remove her head again.  It was a tiny statue in the middle of this gigantic – and I mean gigantic – group of tourists.  People were scrambling down the rocks to try and get a picture with her – no thanks.  We took two – we are in neither.  Photo shop works well for that I understand.

Then we drove to the Amalienborg Palace where the Crown Prince is in residence.  We determined this by the flag flying over the palace.  The original palace was built to accommodate the four main families of Denmark but are now owned by the royal family.  Then we drove through the city seeing a whole bunch of stuff I can’t remember but we have pictures and then we headed toward Malmo whereupon Tom and I totally fell asleep.  Something about a bridge and when you see it from an airplane it looks like it ends in mid-river but it doesn’t because it goes into a tunnel and then we made it to Malmo.  They told us that we had 1.25 hours in Malmo – AND NOTHING WAS OPEN!  So we walked around and around and if I never see another cobblestone again in my life I will die a happy woman.  Talk about twisted ankles.  

Eventually we found a restaurant which was open and I had an amazing hamburger but they were a little heavy on the mayonnaise but that was okay with me.  With Tom?  Not so sure.  But they were yummy and the fries were amazing.  The bathroom was totally unisex where you went into the bathroom area and picked a door which was marked with a male or female symbol or you just picked an empty one – which after you have spent days and days in a long, long line for a female bathroom I could cheer up a storm for that mentality.

So we get back on the bus and drive to Lund.  Lund is a medieval town which has a Viking cathedral which was built in 1100 and is the oldest church In Scandinavia.  They told us a legend about the cathedral which was that there was a troll which kept tearing down the cathedral.  The Bishop struck a bargain with him that if he could guess his name he would not tear down the cathedral anymore and if he lost the Bishop would lose his eyes.  So the Bishop tried and tried to figure out his name and he did not succeed and so the night before he was to go to meet the troll he went out to look his last on the things that he loved and he encountered a woman trying to comfort an infant and she said your father Finn will be here soon to give you all your dreams and so the Bishop knew the troll’s name.  So the troll comes to talk to the Bishop and the Bishop says I know your name and the troll was so angry he was going to tear down the cathedral entirely but it turned to day and the troll turned to stone.  And he’s down in the basement of the Lund Cathedral.  His wife and child are also down there.  We have photographic evidence.

Then we drove back to Copenhagen.  We went and saw the Rosenborg Castle which is no longer a residence but it is a museum with the royal crown jewels.  We didn’t get to go inside because we were already so late.  We drove by the Tivoli Gardens we saw the Christiansborg Palace and the Tivoli Gardens neither of which we got to go in but we were so late by the time we got back to the ship that we had no time to shop on the dock which had some interesting looking shops.  We played trivia and lost and played bingo and lost.  I’m beginning to sense a trend here.

We are now headed out to the North Sea and the captain announced that when we get to the North Sea around 2:00 AM, there will be a strong wind with six foot swells.  Right now we are still in the protected Baltic Sea and there is already a strong wind developing around a two foot swell.  However, tomorrow is a sea day and Tom and I are really looking forward to lounging around.  I may or may not post tomorrow – but then we are on to Amsterdam.