Today in Copenhagen is the National Constitution Day, a holiday. This is nice because the traffic is calmer. It also means with the pleasant weather everyone is out walking and riding their bikes. Again, another day of above average temperatures with sunshine.

The ship docks early and everyone is up early as well preparing to take tours and adventure off the ship. For us, a general tour around Copenhagen to learn about the sights. This evening we will take a hour long canal boat cruise. In the afternoon, I rode the Viking city shuttle to get some better pictures. Now, I am writing this blog post because tomorrow is a 12 hour day on a train to see Berlin and back again.

Rather than write about everything in detail, let me summarize. We see the Opera House, the famous canal street with the colorful houses (iconic Copenhagen), parks, government buildings, the monarchies home, city hall, naval housing, churches, and squares. There are a lot of buildings that are still standing from the late 1500’s and 1600’s because they were not destroyed by fire because they were made of stone or brick.

First stop is the famous Little Mermaid statue on the harbor. I knew it was quite small but I didn’t realize how small. Of course, the area is packed with tourists taking pictures and selfies. Reminds me of Thunder Hole at Acadia National Park. Then there is another mermaid statue on a different harbor point that was created by a Danish artist to demonstrate what genetically modified food is doing to people – he used the Little Mermaid statue as a model.

A bear statue close by has no one around it. It is almost more interesting as it represents Denmark’s association with Greenland and was hit by bullets from a ship during WW2. In the background, with the smoke stack, is a building designed as a ski slope, really! The smoke is from the burning trash incinerator in the building.

Now a collage of buildings I mentioned earlier.

Then there are the many fountains and naturally statues around the city.

The Opera House sits on the harbor and looks across to the Symphony Hall, the royal family homes and other buildings described to us but not memorable to me.

The canals are lovely, not as many as Amsterdam. Meanwhile I took as many pictures as I could capture through a bus window.

The best for last. When I took the shuttle, I was able to walk over to the famous canal area.

If there is anything fun from the cruise on the canal tonight, I’ll post an addendum to this post.