Wednesday 2 November 2011

Wonderful!

It's lovely to be back in Copenhagen after, cough, 30 years, and this bit doesn't seem to have changed at all. Nyhavn is still a short canal lined by 4 and 5-storey houses painted strong colours - one of them, number 67, once lived in by Hans Christian Andersen, rather sweetly known here as HC Andersen - between narrow cobblestone roads, with lots of old wooden sailing ships moored along the wharf. Our hotel is right at the end, where the canal meets the harbour, and I have a lovely view of the Best Restaurant in the World, straight across the water: Noma, in a tall brick warehouse. We're not to eat there, unfortunately, though I'm sure we'll do just fine at the places Wonderful Copenhagen has picked out for us.

We took a canal cruise this afternoon, in bright sunshine and a sharpish breeze, scraping under low bridges and delighted by the towers and spires, bikes and boats, brick and stucco in the low sunshine. Back at the hotel, the nice young man at reception was amazed that we should have come all the way from New Zealand to see Copenhagen. "It's not Paris, you know," he said apologetically. But it's lovely, and I know we're going to enjoy exploring it over the next few days - and staying in this cosy old hotel, 71 Nyhavn, with its beams and odd corners and shapes.

It took six hours to get here from Dubai, by the way - a daylight flight this time, and I looked out at just the right time to see a gigantic snow-clad mountain spread out below, surrounded by brown arid land. According to the airshow, it was halfway between Van and Tblisi, and Google suggests tonight that it was Mount Ararat, in Turkey. I do wish they'd put proper maps in airline magazines the way they used to

2 comments:

Brett Atkinson said...

Definitely Mt Ararat or Agri Dag as the Turks call it - it's even more sacred to Armenia but old enmities mean Armenians can't cross the border to see it.

I'll be back in Van next year for LP and currently in Methven en route to Christchurch - looks like I'm becoming LP's go to guy for cities damaged by earthquakes.

Safe travels...

TravelSkite said...

Thanks for that, Brett - it's great to know an expert!

I hope you find the Christchurch spirit compensates for the state of the fabric of the place.

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