Hello hello everyone! Welcome back to another travel post, it’s been a while, and there are still a lottt of travel posts lined up. So let’s continue where we left off with the cruise! My last post was Honfleur, France & Hamburg Germany, so check that one out if you haven’t already!

AARHUS

We walked out of the ship and arrived right at the port of Aarhus. We were welcomed by a lot of locals selling their wares, and someone gave me a licorice candy shaped like a pipe! I put that in my mouth and posed for a picture with a ship, as you can see down there below. We went into the visitor’s centre and they gave us some recommendations for where to go and explore in Aarhus. There wasn’t a whole lot at the actual port, but the rest of the city is walkable from the port, so that’s what we did!

While we walked, we found this really awesome rooftop thing, it’s actually a rooftop on top of a mall. We took an elevator, and then went up, and then the world just sort of kept expanding, haha. There was a coffee shop on the top of the roof, as well as various other scenic points to view the city from. A glass walkway to overlook one of the streets, and fun chairs and places to sit on different points at the rooftop. It’s like a public park, except it’s made of glass. I think this is a really cool idea because it utilizes a lot of space that wouldn’t otherwise be used. It also gives great views of the city, and gives another space where people can meet, and sit down for coffee and tea.

Location: Salling Roof Garden

This was actually my first ever time in Denmark, and overall I thought Denmark was really wonderful. Very walkable, with lots of interesting stops on the way. We first went into this magnificent church. Very picturesque, very ornate. I loved how the sun shone through the big windows.

Of course we had to try a Danish in Denmark… (Google actually tells me that Danish Pastries originated from Vienna, Austria which I didn’t know, but hey, I’ve been there too :D. Funny how it’s called a Danish, like the people in Denmark are called “Danes” but a Danish pastry isn’t from Demark…) It was a very good pastry, but I eat pastries a lot so it wasn’t really a foreign “experience”, if you know what I mean. I think these pastries are definitely much better than what you would find at a place like Starbucks where their pastries are mostly air. These are very filling and delicious, and we had cinnamon rolls!

Then, we took a journey underground. We came across an old church, and on the outside it looked like an ordinary church. But then we went inside, and in this big expansive space there was a hole in the ground And in the hole in the ground lived a Hobbit. Just kidding. In the hole was the remnants of an old church, so there was a stone underground with curved archways. You don’t see that everyday.

Then I begged my parents to go to the Viking museum because I find the Vikings extremely interesting. I loved looking at all of the artifacts and recreations of how they lived. It fascinates me how they were such an advanced society, with their famous Viking ships, their houses and ways of life that have been passed down and recorded today. And it was actually free to go inside as well!

One thing that I noticed a lot in Europe during my travels is that they really encourage biking, and they make it easy to get everywhere via bike as well. Denmark especially is very bike friendly. You have to be careful as a pedestrian to not get run over by a bike because there are just so many of them!

COPENHAGEN

Next stop right after Aarhus was Copenhagen! Still in Denmark, we decided to go to the main part of the city. There were a lot of lovely boats, and really pretty colourful houses! This part of Copenhagen was very beautiful! We wanted to take a canal tour as well, so in the pictures you can see the canal that goes right down the middle of the houses and the boats. It was a nice and sunny day, so we had a lot of fun there in the sunshine. We actually took the Hop On Hop Off bus tour, I would really recommend those in most cities. They make it really easy and convenient to get around, there’s history, and you can use it as a good mode of transportation around the city.

Now I’m sure most of you are familiar with “The Little Mermaid”, and if you’re into literature like me, you might have known that this story was a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, who is also Danish. Now, this statue has some lore behind it. The person who commissioned this statue was inspired by The Little Mermaid ballet, and the head of the statue resembles the dancer of that ballet. However, the body is based on the maker’s wife because the ballerina refused to pose nude.

If you look at the actual statue, the tail of the mermaid isn’t actually one big tail, it is split much like actual legs. Her tail is essentially just legs with fins, like flippers. I guess this makes sense, since it was based on a ballet, and they wouldn’t have been able to dance with their legs together in one tail.

We would recommend the canal tour as well! I don’t think it really matters which tour you take, since all of the boats head to the same place. It takes you on a nice sightseeing tour around Copenhagen, you can learn about the history, and see all of the buildings! I remember we also passed by a really tall building that you could high dive off of! I loved the architecture in Copenhagen, I think it’s a really advanced modern city. At the back of my picture of the Little Mermaid statue down below there, in the background you can see their incinerator for where they burn all of their garbage. Stuff like that combined with the encouraged use of bikes as a primary mode of transportation makes Copenhagen a really unique city.

Walking around the city’s main centre we found a statue of Hans Christian Andersen and the Tivoli Gardens. Unfortunately Tivoli was closed… which is TRAGIC because I wanted to go to the amusement park. We also did see the city hall, and it’s another really beautiful building! I love love love love European buildings… The city hall has red bricks, a clock tower, and with further research I found that this clock also can tell the positions of stars and planets, indicates sunrises and sunsets, and displays solar time in addition to local time.

Towards the end of the day, we decided to check out Rosenborg Castle, also known as The King’s Castle. I don’t visit castles too often, so this was truly an experience! Unfortunately we didn’t go in because it was near closing time, but it was just as good looking at it from outside.

Unfortunately I don’t know much of the history for this castle because we didn’t get a tour or anything like that, haha. But I think the crown jewels are kept there. We visited for the pretty scenery, the garden and the castle!

Alright, that’s just about everything we did in Denmark! We actually liked Copenhagen a lot, so we went back during our layover, but that’s a story for another time. I was really impressed with Denmark, how innovative these cities were, and I think Aarhus and Copenhagen are cities I could see myself living in. I would like to go back for a longer time, since cruise stops are always so short. I think there’s a lot more to explore, as usual.

And that’s it for this post! I do recommend visiting Aarhus and Copenhagen, and if you’ve been there, I’d love to hear your thoughts about them :]

Bye bye for now!

(one more photo of me in the Lego store because Lego in Denmark is so correct)