Monday, March 30, 2015

Copenhagen!

We love our Scandinavian visits..... so our time here in the UK wouldn't be complete without a trip to Copenhagen! We planned a 3 day weekend in early March.


 
 The weather was a bit crap so we just hung out and did a little bar hoping on Friday. 
First stop was for lunch for burgers and some home brews!
 Next we did a tasting at Brewpub - all very interesting and delicious!
 We topped off the evening with a hole in the wall that ended up being loads of fun. It was the launch of the spring beer that night, so lots of people out and about and they were handing out free pints!

The next day we did the free walking tour of Copenhagen - with our very danish guide!
 Here is the home the Carlsberg Family grew up in
 We stopped to get lunch here and had some tasty Danish Pastries :) 
We went to the Royal Square and had a beautiful view of the Marble Church
Cheeky photo in front of the Christiansborg Palace
Throughout the tour, we learned some very interesting facts about Denmark
- long history of wars with Sweden
- taxes on cars are 180%
- more than 50% of people regularly commute via bike 
- longest standing monarchy in Europe
 And we went to this beautiful view here in the harbor - Nyhavan. Another fun fact that we learned is that the guy who wrote little mermaid (Hans Christian Anderen) lived here.... Little Mermaid is the 3rd most translated story of all time. He also is the original author of Frozen. 
The Sydney Opera House was designed by a Danish...
 and he also designed the Copenhagen Opera House..... but it is not nearly as interesting!
Our guide described it as a man wearing a cowboy hat and boots haha
 We took a little walk further along the canal to see the little mermaid statue... while she has been painted red and beheaded by the Danish on several occasions, 
it is clear they are not big fans. 
 But there were loads of people around eager to get their picture.. just like us!
 Taking a minute to soak it all in :) 
We found this #happywall and had some fun
 Interesting statue we ran into
Saw several raleigh bikes... makes me excited to potentially get one when we get home!
Another fun fact we learned... approximately 18K bikes are reported stolen every year

We went out for a fancy dinner on Saturday..... fun and interesting plates in the warehouse district

 We visited the Rosenborg Castle on Sunday morning
and look at that blue sky!!! the temp also rose some to 
we couldn't have asked for better weather!
I love this beautiful picture
 Unique angle with a mirrored floor
 
This is probably one of my favorite castles that we have visited so far!
 We got to see the Danish crown jewels!
So the next place we went was the round tower
It was fun to walk up the ramp to the top!
 
 The views from the top were well worth it! Can you see the castle we just visited?!?
 In the afternoon, we decided to do another walking tour toward Christiania. 
On the way, we passed this historic stock exchange building. 
 along the side of the building there were different statues 
 This was an interesting building we saw... where they had indicated the time period of some of the major updates to the building. I think this was the only building in the whole of Copenhagen that had this though haha

So Christiania - Very different experience! The place started out as squatters over taking military barracks in 1971. There are 850 residents on 34 acres, and there is a waiting list to join the community. They are often known for their liberated lifestyle and considered to be a top 5 attraction for Copenhagen. It is most well known for 'Pusher Street' were weed and hash have been sold in permanent stands since 2004. Before walking into Pusher Street there were 3 simply rules we had to follow:
1: Have Fun
2: Don't Run
3: No Photos

For obvious reasons, a drug dealer does not want his picture taken and they don't want people to run because it causes fear there is a police raid. Our guide indicated the last raid was in Feb 2014 and they got something circa 22KG in less than 20 seconds. Needless to say, we did not chance ANY photos whatsoever in this place. I know it is something we will always remember though!
After the tour, we decided to make one more trek back to the harbour to get one more glimpse at sunset... and it was worth all the extra steps to get there,  which was basically another 3 miles round trip. We reached a new high step count on Sunday of close to 30K or ~13 miles! Needless to say it was a good day and we were ready to go home.... despite the airline strike that delayed this from happening for 6 hours... it was still a great trip!

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Kent Castle Tour!

We decided to go on a day trip and visit 3 different castles in Kent - Leeds, Dover, and Canterbury. The guide described all 3 as having different personalities, Leeds was the girly one, Dover was the Manly one and Canterbury was the cathedral. 

First on the list was Leeds Castle!

The setting was absolutely beautiful!
The castle was originally built in 1119 and most of today is from the 19th Century
We heard about the maze and decided we wanted to 
wander first before heading into the castle
In the middle there was a fun grotto that you walked out of
Jeff had some fun experimenting with the camera
I tend to really struggle with good shots when the weather is not so great
Playing with the focal points
Beautiful!!

The next stop was over to the Manly Castle - Dover Castle!
Can you see the famous Dover Cliffs in the background?!? 
We made a stop on the way to the castle at the cliffs... 
but the weather made it really tough to see them
Dover Castle is often described as the 'Key to England' 
because it is located at the shortest distance to continental Europe. 
The weather had taken another turn for the worst, with lots of wind and 
semi heavy rain, we spend most of the time in the main tower. 
It certain made the tower have more of a commanding presence!
 I think we make the perfect King and Queen :) 
The castle had a ton of things to do here, from secret tunnels used in wars, hospital tunnels and museums. It is also one of the largest castle in England.
(The grounds and surrounding views of the Leeds Castle were my favorite, 
but the history and actual castle at Dover I liked better.)

The last stop on the tour was Canterbury!
By the 3rd stop we were ready to just relax and get out of the weather.....
so we popped around to a local pub and had a bite to eat and a pint before heading back to London! It was a great way to end the day :)