Day 15: Berlin to Copenhagen

-I know I am missing a few days of entries but hopefully they'll be caught up soon!-

This morning we were up at 5:15am and out of the hostel by 6:30! So a pretty early start :P Clare and I got the U-bahn and then the S-bahn to meet up with our Contiki group on the other side of town at 7:30am. When we got there we were checked in and then loaded onto the bus. There were already 30+ people there but we were told we’d have 53 people by the end of the evening (others were meeting us in Stockholm). After the introduction by our tour manager, Clare and I both slept most of the way to the coast of Germany.

At the coast the bus drove onto a huge ferry and we all got to jump off and explore the ferry. It was really big and had many different levels including food and on-board shopping. We also went outside to look at the Baltic Sea but it was raining and really windy so it wasn’t very pleasant! The ferry took 2 hours or so and then we got to the port in Denmark and we had officially entered Scandinavia!

After a border control passport check (which was apparently really unusual but everything has changed with the Syrian migrant crisis and the UK leaving the EU), we drove 2.5 more hours to Copenhagen, playing get to know you games along the way. It was great to meet people but there were so many I was really struggling with names!

When we got to Copenhagen, we got checked in to the hostel and I met my roommates before I headed out for a walk with a group. The first stop was Nyhavn which was absoloutly beautiful with buildings running down both sides of the canal which was lined with sailing boats. We wandered down to the end of the walking strip and back along the other side. We then walked down Strøget shopping street which is the best known shopping in Copenhagen, and includes the lego shop which was good fun to visit! Before heading back to the hostel we took a trip to the Round Tower, the tower which is the oldest functioning observatory in Europe. Inside was one sloping ramp to the top which had great views over Copenhagen even though it was a cloudy. I was also able to look into the observatory but couldn’t go in.

Clare and I had separated from the group and got very lost getting back to the hostel but when we finally found our way back we had dinner with the group and then headed out on an introduction tour of the city. We saw the Amalienborg Palace which although being home of the Danish Royal

family, wasn’t particularly grand or guarded (you could pretty much knock on the door) which was really interesting. We also went to the Little Mermaid statue which was beautiful looking out over Copenhagen harbour at sunset before we went on a bus tour of the city, learning about some of the history and practices of the Danes as well as seeing Tivoli gardens, multiple museums and churches and lots of beautiful architecture. After the tour we were all dropped off at a bar where we spent the night having a few drinks (including blueberry Somersby cider!) and getting to know people.