Copenhagen, Denmark

In March of 2008 Mark Katz was heading to Europe and we have done London and Amsterdam together so this time we decided to go for something new. We opened the maps and chose Copenhagen, Denmark. I've always heard it was lovely and indeed it was!!
I took Friday off from work and we left early in the morning, meeting Katz at Copenhagen airport. We went to our hotel which was so budget the triple room actually had a bunk bed and was the size of a large walk in closet. It put London hotels to shame in terms of budget qualities. The shower, toilet and sink were all in one. No joke! It was hilarious. But who cares, we don't spend much time in the hotel anyway....
Friday we walked around (Tivoli Gardens was closed as we were there in March), we walked down the pedestrian street all the way past Nyhavn to Kastellat which is a star shaped fortress with a huge hill around it. It was originally built to protect from the Swedes but actually used against the British. Walking past Kastellat we finally arrived at the Mermaid statue. We took pictures with her along with 50 other people. She has been there on the rock since 1913. Just as we were leaving it started raining pretty good so we grabbed a cab back to the hotel and the driver gave us a great lesson on Danish life, education, Sales Tax, income tax, how expensive cars are to import to Denmark, college tuition and finances, etc... it was so interesting, we learned the most about Danish life from our cab driver! It was great. We had dinner at a chain restaraunt... and that night we headed to the Copenhagen Jazz Club. The DJ was fabulous and we stayed very late!
Saturday we woke up late and walked to get bagels for breakfast. We then hopped on a canal boat tour and saw a lot of the city from the water. It was sunny but cold and chilly! The architecture is interesting as there is a good mix of old and modern buildings around the harbors. I highly recommend a canal tour first stop! We saw the Opera house, the home of Hans Christen Anderson, the Theatre, the Mermaid (again) and many houseboats and boats. Copenhagen is a very picturesque city! We then walked 30 minutes to a bar called Pussy Galore's Flying Circus and had a beer and relaxed. We took a taxi back to the hotel (note for future: rent bikes!) and saw this beautiful building on a big canal. Turned out that we would visit that building that ngiht but didnt' know it at the time! For the evening we had been asking around about live music and heard that there was a U2 cover band playing at sopavillonen. It was a great venue, great live music, and the DJ afterwards was so fun we stayed until 5am dancing. Copenhagen has a vibrant nightlife!
Sunday we slept in and flew home. What a great weekend! We highly recommend renting bikes to get around the city better. There are huge proper bike lanes and this will make the most of your time and it's easier to get around. The Danes were so friendly and such happy people, this struck us and we will remember this visit always.