Copenhagen, Day 2

I set aside the morning for us to see a few sites close to the hotel (with Abby staying behind again for school work). Kevin found a creperie nearby, so we started there for breakfast:

After breakfast, we headed to Round Tower (Rundetaarn), which was built by King Christian IV (he was the king that built much of the city) in 1642 as an astronomical observatory. The tower is very cool as there are no stairs, just a ramp that curls around and around up the tower until you get to the top where there are great views of the city:

Model of the tower, attached to Trinity Church

Walking up the ramps

The tower has a hollow core, which a small boy famously survived falling down in the 17th century. There's a glass floor on it now.

Views from the top:

The building with the green spires is Rosenborg Castle

The bridge to Sweden in the background. Also, the building with the winding spire is All Souls Church. We originally planned to go up that spire instead of Round Tower, but Kevin did not think it would be enjoyable for him so we switched venue

View of Stroget (the main shopping street) from above

Once we came down from the tower, we ducked inside the church to have a look around:

Magpies in the churchyard

Next, we went to Rosenborg Castle, which was built in the 1600s by (again) King Christian IV and was an official residence of the crown until 1710, when it was made the home of the royal collections and the crown treasury (i.e. the crown jewels). 

We (accidentally, again) stumbled on to the changing of the guard at Rosenborg

Still has a moat

The castle has a large rose garden, looked over by a statue of Queen Charlotte

This castle inside was really neat because each room (or set of a few rooms) houses a collection from a different period. It starts with King Christian IV's rooms and moves chronologically in time (with the treasury in the basement):

They are renovating Christian IV's rooms, but some of the original paintings from 1617 were still visible

Christian IV's desk

This is the original painted ceiling of the castle

You can definitely see a change in style as we moved to Frederick III's rooms

King Frederick's rooms had a beautiful tiled toilet

As we moved to the "newer" monarchs, you could see the various art/decorative movements come in - these rooms were mostly Rococo:

Note the wooden chandelier

Birdcage clock?

The great hall had the coronation chairs, guarded by the Danish lions

We were all amused by this prank chair from 1673

The tapestries in the great hall showed off Christian V's naval victories in the Scanian War in 1675-79

Once we finished the upstairs rooms, we headed down into the treasury, which had a fascinating collection:

These are the actual antlers from the stag that mauled Christian V during a hunt and caused his death

This crown was from the coronation of the first King of the united Kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden, It has an unusual open top.

Closer up picture of this crown to show the amazing detail

Current crowns, with the more typical closed top

Look at this sapphire!

After Rosenborg, we had a quick lunch and then walked back over to city hall while we waited for Abby to arrive. Our guide on Monday had told us that city hall houses the most accurate mechanical clock in the world (Jen Olson's world clock), and Benji was excited to see it:

Once Abby arrived, we headed to Tivoli, the amusement park set in the middle of the city. Walt Disney visited Tivoli many, many times as he designed his parks, and you can definitely see the similarities:

The park is all decorated for Christmas and looks amazing:

Many of the rides have cameras (and let you download the images for free), but Abby also likes to take ride selfies:

This ride was basically Space Mountain

This one is basically Dumbo

We found driving the lantern boats challenging

There are multiple carousels around the park, but this one was beautiful

After a dinner break, we decided to walk around the lake as we digested:

Once we had enough room, we stopped for hot cocoa and Danish donuts (aebleskiver):

Kevin declined to join us, but the view from the Ferris wheel was spectacular:

The kids wanted to ride the swings, so we sent them off and rode a more sedate ride. Luckily, Abby took some pictures:

Here are some of the pics we downloaded from the rides:

This one was like the Toy Story ride where you have to shoot at targets

Final scores: Ruth (purple), Abby (red), Benji (blue), Kevin (green)

When we finally left the park, we stopped at Lego Tivoli to pick up a souvenir for Alex, but we also made our own minifigs:

This was definitely our fullest day of the trip, but also one of the best!

Copenhagen, Day 1

We arrived back in Copenhagen Sunday night and were ready to start exploring the city on Monday. Abby stayed at her apartment through the morning to get some work done, and the other three of us took a three hour walking tour which ended with the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Palace (the current residence of the Danish Royals):

Statue of Hans Christian Anderson

Copenhagen City Hall (Radhuspladsen)

The decoration game around the city is strong

I really like these colorful buildings on cobblestone streets, which you find pockets of all around the old part of the city

Our tour positioned us so we were in the right spot to catch the Life Guard as they marched to the palace

This is Nyhavn (New Harbor), the most photographed spot in Copenhagen, with its pretty cafes lining the canal

Changing of the Guard at Amelienborg

After the tour, we walked down the street to see Frederick's Church, also known as the marble cathedral. It was an ambitious project, originally planned by King Frederick V to be a marble wonder in the middle of a new district. It's building had several delays, and it ended up being finished (not in marble) over a 100 years later by a group of merchants. Still pretty, though:

From the church, we headed back to Nyhavn for lunch and then met up with Abby. We thought we would try to get a nice picture for our Christmas card with Nyhavn behind us:

Once we put in our best effort on that, we headed to a few of the Christmas markets in the city:

We checked out the Lego store, which had Lego models of Nyhavn 

By this time, we were ready for dinner and Abby suggested a board game cafe she knew of nearby, which was super fun:

It was such a beautiful night, we decided to walk back to the hotel and take in more of the decorations around the city: