Copenhagen has not lived up to expectations

Copenhagen got off to a bad start - on airport advice we took the wrong train - intercity train instead of the local metro - huge mistake. Needless to say the 15mnin ride to the metro stop near our hotel ended up in a 2 hour journey of train, bus and long walk. We are staying in a lovely part of the city and our street is full of beautiful old buildings - we are literally round the corner from Mary and Frederik - their palace is not very opulent from the exterior as far as palaces go - but apparently the interior has received massive renovations since Mary has moved in. Go girl!!

Raining here most of Friday but it stopped just in time for us to pop out for dinner - one of our most expensive so far. Everything is so very expensive here and very touristy - the lovely old buildings are covered in billboards and neon signs advertising everything from McDonalds to Carlsberg Beer to Samsung - such a shame.

Went on a walking tour of the city yesterday which was a little dull - Copenhagen unlike many European cities has no old town - so the city was more or less the commercial centre of town - new buildings. We are staying in the old part of town but the beautiful old buildings along the canals at the rear of our street have all been turned into tourist restaurants - we avoid these like the plague. Walked through the palace grounds and along the canal to the Little Mermaid - the statue is a Danish icon - built in memory of Hans Christian Andersen who wrote the tale in 1836 later to be immortalised in the Disney Classic of the same name.

View from our room


Our street

Jazz band playing in the Town Hall Square

Town Hall Square where our city walk started

Entry to the Parliament buildings

Looking back to the city from Parliament

Royal Palace

Changing of the Guard

The Little Mermaid

Hans Cristian Andersen Toy Shop

One of the few old buildings without advertising

We start the next phase of our trip tomorrow - picking up the motorhome in Stuttgart. We have had over 50 days of hotel breakfasts - sick of the sight of bacon and eggs - so it will be good to eat more simply for a while. It will also be nice to do a spot of cooking instead of pounding the pavements searching for dinner each evening. That doesn't mean we cook every night - probably about 50/50. If we are in a town and happen to come across a nice restaurant we will stay - if not, we cook. 

The blogs will become less frequent over the next 5 weeks as we have to rely on the likes of McDonalds, Starbucks etc. for access - but will try to keep as up to date as I can. So goodbye from Scandinavia - blog you soon from France.

Ann 

A couple of drizzly days in Tallinn

Woke up to miserable weather this morning - luckily it stopped to only a light drizzle for our walking tour of the old town with Katrin our guide. She provided us with some of the history of Estonia and in particular the capital city of Tallinn. She took us into tiny alleyways and shops we would not have found on our own. We came across a pharmacy that has been run by the same family since 1422 - quite amazing. Walked through the Kalev Marzipan Room to see the hand-painted marzipan figures - it was established in 1806 and was a favourite of Russian Tzars. The weather was a little brighter after lunch so we again walked round the old town to visit some of our favourite spots from our walk yesterday.

Nobody sitting outside on a dreary wet day

Hand-painted Marzipan - at a price!!

The dull weather couldn't dull the vibrant flower colours

 Thursday the weather was only slightly better so we ventured to the bus terminal across the road and took a couple of local buses, one out to the seaside - people were hopping on with their fishing rods - far too cold to go swimming. The other bus went right out into the suburbs and we saw many of the traditional wooden homes that Estonia is known for.                                                                              

 

 Our time in Tallinn will shortly be coming to an end, hopefully the wet weather as well -  we are off to Copenhagen tomorrow - who knows we may even run into Mary and Frederick.

Ann

We have fallen in love with Tallinn

Left the hotel to walk across the road for the tram to take us to the fery terminal for the Tallink Superstar to Tallinn. Nice ship - much larger than I had thought - took us 2 hours to reach Tallinn, the capital of Estonia - a beautiful day today and it was lovely on the water.

 

Short walk of about 1k from the port to our our hotel just outside of the old town. After lunch we set off in search of the local tourist office in the heart of the old town to see how we will entertain ourselves here. Once out of the touristy part of town we fell in love with this beautiful town especially up at Toompea, the high part of town and the remanants of the city walls. We walked round for hours winding our way round and round - getting lost over and over - and we found a fabulous little restaurant for dinner on our travels.

The gates of the Old Town

Ornate Russian Orthodox Church - exquisite inside



Overlooking the Old Town



The main square

Beautiful flower market

Another Russian Church

We have a walking tour of the city tomorrow so we will discover more secrets of this beautiful town and some of its history up to its independence in 1991 after 50 years of first Soviet occupation in WWII followed by the Germans and finally Russia again in 1944. The Soviet influence is very evident in its buildings and churches. 

Ann 

Helsinki - a mix -some nice and not so nice parts of town

I am glad to say our first impressions of Helsinki have been proved wrong - there is much to like about Helsinki. On the other hand there is also much to dislike. The day started off very overcast and cloudy once again which gave the city a very bleak appearance. Once on the city tour though we drove to lovely parts of the city surrounded by parks and garden and beautiful buildings. The city has a a very efficient public transport system including trams, and we took one out to the ferry terminal where we will be leaving tomorrow for Tallinn in Estonia, 2 hours by ferry.

View of the city from our room on the 8th floor

The Rock Church - excavated and built directly out of solid rock

There is a lot of Helsinki that is not so nice - very dirty, very dark and dingy parts of town that we would not venture to at night. Food is still very expensive here and from what we have seen, to be of poor quality. Played it safe tonight and visited the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner - it is just round the corner from the hotel - very good meal - reasonably priced (for Scandinavia that is) and not too loud. Elliot would have enjoyed reading about the guitars round the walls - The Who, Kiss, Van Halen and many more. 

 

Looking forward to Tallinn and the ferry tomorrow.

Ann