Day 8 - Sep. 9th

We were awoken early, due to Gelo sharing a common courtyard with a neighboring restaurant, where the staff felt either enthusiastic or aggressive towards trash disposal.  We slept in as best we could, but Gelo was up soon after.  Hot off the heels of his Iceland trip, he had to go back to work.  We bid him good day, and decided what we'd do for the morning.

We chose to go to Rosenborg Castle, a palace dating back to the early 1600s.  It was once a royal residence, but now a museum.  It's one of the more popular tourist destinations in Copenhagen, and it was only a few blocks from Gelo's.

The castle is situated in a huge and immaculately kept park, which was worth a visit of its own.

Not the most imposing castle, but irrefutably posh.

I'm not sure how much of a defensive structure it was, but enough to warrant a moat

We paid our admission fee and went in.  There was an option for an audio guided tour, that we could access with our phones, but neither of us had thought to bring headphones.  So we had to make do with a somewhat cryptic flyer that didn't always prove to be accurate.

King Christian IV's mark, this appeared a lot throughout Copenhagen

In one of Christian IV's battles, he got shot in the neck but survived. He decreed that the soiled clothes remain on display

A little grisly, but cool

The Royal Throne.  I only noticed afterward the inclusion of the "king's notch" in the seat.

View into the adjacent room from the toilet.  I once had a setup like this so I could watch TV from the bathroom, perhaps he had minstrels.

Carved from a nautilus shell

Much more distinctive than a red Solo cup

I tried finding this in Ikea, but it must be a discontinued model.

Hole from a stray bullet in WWII, I believe.

Pretty cool 2-in-1 painting, some noble lady from this side.

Some noble guy from this one.

We got to witness the changing of the guard while taking our tour.

The infamous "mirror room."  Every surface was mirrored, there may or may have not been lascivious activities in here. There were also hidden compartments that may or may not have contained accessories for said activities.

If you thought that looks like it's carved out of ivory, you'd be correct.

View of the front yard, and moat.

Probably the most famous room, the reception hall

The three silver lions were a symbol for Denmark.

The throne on the left was said to be made of unicorn horns.  In actuality, they're narwhal tusks--only slightly less mythical.

After touring the main part of the castle, we went down into the basement where a bunch of valuable artifacts were kept.  We tried not to spend TOO long here, as the air was stale, and smelled of urine.

A set of dueling pistols given as a gift by Abraham Lincoln

Yup, more ivory

And more ivory, carved from a single piece.  The detail on these sculptures is impossible to convey in photos, but parts are barely thicker than a hair.

By the power of Rosenborg...!

Christian IV's crown

Christian V's and his queen's crown--reminds me of a certain libation

Seeing all that opulence really works up an appetite, and we were intent on showing some opulence of our own by eating out.  But not before taking a further stroll through the park.

I'm sure Copenhagen has other famous natives, but they really dig on Hans Christian Andersen.

Yippee!

We headed back toward's Gelo's place with food on our mind, and passed an Italian restaurant along the way.  They offered a lunch special and the prices didn't look too bad, considering, so we stopped in.  There was another table with some tourists, but otherwise the place was empty.  Therry got some sort of pasta, and I got a pizza with prosciutto, gorgonzola, and black truffle.  Therry's pasta looked good, but I think she may have been a little envious of my pizza.

DiGiorno has stepped up their game

The food was delicious. We finished the meal and stopped by the corner grocery store before going back to Gelo's.  We lounged for a bit, but soon grew restless and went out to walk around the city some more.  We decided to go check out Copenhagen's most famous unimpressive sight, the Little Mermaid statue.  It has the reputation of being the biggest letdown, which ironically means it's one of the most visited attractions.

On the way, we wandered through some of the old architecture.  We found some buildings that we figure had to be barracks at some point.

I'd like to point out that my hand is in my hoodie pocket--I may be American but I'm not THAT American.

Interesting contrast of old and new(ish).

 On the way to the statue, we walked through the Copenhagen Kastellet.  The Kastellet is easy to pick out on any map of Copenhagen, it's the star shaped place with a moat.  Like Rosenborg Castle, it was originally constructed in the early 1600s, but is actually still in use by the military. Most of the grounds are open to the public, but there are still areas that are off limits.  It was probably the most welcoming military installation I've every visited.  Very clean and manicured.

Some of Copenhagen's new hoity-toity apartments can be seen in the distance.

Soon enough, we came to the infamous statue.

That's it? That's it.

Asian tourist for scale.

It's not a bad sculpture, but I never really heard why it became a landmark in the first place.  There are plenty more impressive things to see throughout the city.  I suppose it may have to do with how the statue was created, a local merchant was so moved by the story (much sadder than the Disney version), that he commissioned the statue to be made.  Regardless, Therry knew of a much more impressive, yet lesser known statue not far away.

The Not-So-Little Mermaid.

She had such beautiful eyes!

On our way back, we passed by this impressive church and fountain.

We were already in the mood to head back to Gelo's but at this point a rainstorm blew up on us, and convinced us that we were really ready to go back.  Fortunately, it was still warm, so the rain wasn't all that unpleasant.

We passed the Russian Orthodox church along the way.

As well as the Marble Church.

And the local Tesla dealership.

The street outside Gelo's place.

When we got back to Gelo's he was home and suggested going out to eat pho.  He was starting to feel a little sick, which in retrospect, I should have heeded.  Pho sounded good to us too, but he wanted to take a little nap first.  So we hung out and watched Netflix for a while until he was roused by a torrential downpour.  He was still adamant about going to get pho, but we weren't that dead set on it, not if it meant having to walk through that kind of rain.  So he suited up with some rain gear to head for his restaurant, and we went back to the corner shop to pick up supplies to try to make our own pho.

Our pho was not passable as the real thing, but it wasn't bad, especially for being cobbled together with ingredients from the corner store.  We also picked up some beer while at the store, it was supposed to be a chocolate stout, I believe.  It was not all I hoped it'd be, and I think our ad hoc pho was better than our expensive beer.