They say when in Denmark, do as the Danes. So we got ourselves a couple of bicycles and toured the city like the locals. Thankfully the rain held off again today, though it was overcast and colder than the past five days. Not only is Copenhagen a very walkable city, it`s also very bike friendly. It really helps that they put a lot of forethought into creating bike lanes and routes throughout the city that do not cause disruptions to vehicle traffic. The bike lanes have traffic lights at intersections and for the most part, the locals are quite orderly in their riding. It`s quite a sight to see during rush hour traffic, bikes lined up in a straight line at a red light, like we're used to seeing cars stopped at a red light.
Anyway enough about that. We started off heading into an area called Islands Brygge & Orestad. Here we found the only gas station seen so far on this trip; diesel was $9.79 Kroner/L, octane 92 was $10.96/L and octane 95 was $10.99/L. Now that expensive. I have read it's all the taxes added on that makes gas so costly. We cycled on and found one of Copenhagen University`s campuses. It was really modern and quite large. We cycled around a bit before heading off to Christianhavn. Here we wanted to take a look at Christiania.
Christiania is a freetown founded in 1971 when hippies occupied Christian IV's old naval base which was abandoned military property. The people there live by the motto that every individual take responsibility for their own life and home. The area is a self-governing society. The area has a very colourful history to it and is known for its open cannabis trading. The cannabis trading was tolerated by authorities until 2004 and since then the residents have taken down the stalls on Pusher Street. It was definitely a very different area and didn't feel like it was a part of Copenhagen. We didn't spend too much time there, which was probably a good thing.
From Chirstiania we made our way to Nyhavn and stopped for lunch in a quaint little restaurant filled with just locals. We went off the beaten track a little to find this place because we didn't want to end up eating in the tourist-trap restaurants along the waterfront. We did that on Monday. After lunch we had the energy to keep going and made our way along the water to where the Little Mermaid status normally resides. She's on loan to China for the world Expo and in her place is a live feed screen of her in China. From here we cycled to an area called Osterbro.
Osterbro is where many families with children choose to live if they can afford the rent. It's also known as an excellent shopping area. We continued on from here to Norrebro which is definitely a vibrant multi-ethnic neighbourhood. Z saw a Lebanese restaurant and got very excited. From there we touched slightly into Frederiksberg on our way back to return the bike rental before the deadline. In all we cycled for about 4.5 hours today. It was a great way to see a lot of the city in a short period of time. While we ended up in a couple areas that I had already been to on foot, Z had not seen much of the city at all and so it was great to explore this way with him. It was even fun for me to say, "oh yeah, I know where we are, we should go down this way". It was a great day and renting a bike for a day when in Copenhagen is a must.
This evening as we were strolling along Stroget (the pedestrian street by our hotel) we found that there was an unusual amount of people out and about. There were also a lot more street vendors and performers out. While walking along we found a company handing out free, very tasty soup and a coffee shop was giving away free cafe lattes and banana bread. Z and I joked that we would just keep getting back in line and perhaps that would be our dinner. We figured out after some time that a "culture night" was going on. The restaurants were packed, the street was packed...the crowds felt like our short two weeks of Olympics in February. It was great! This is one of the things I love about Europe; the people sure do enjoy living.
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