5/22 -- Finish with Copenhagen, Sail to Oslo

We started the day with a Canal tour of Copenhagen, and learned what some of the buildings were that we had seen before. Unfortunately, some of the things I wanted to photograph were on the other side of the boat. There was a sign in the waterfront at Chrisitiania that said "not everyone can afford to live in a villa" along side a couple of wildly decorated vessels that may have been homes. 

This is the theater that we visited later in the day,

The canal tour boats are designed to be JUST narrow enough
to go through the narrowest and shortest bridge openings.

This had been some kind of Naval hanger, and was converted
to apartments.

These buildings were Naval warehouses and now have found
new lives for a variety of ventures despite looking pretty
rickety close up.

Old building that hasn't been replaced.

The two white kiosks are for the Queen and her family on
their way on and off their yacht. We were told there were two
because the Queen is a heavy smoker so she and her guests
can have one without smoke too.

Another crowd at the Little Mermaid

The Queen's yacht. It was the same one we saw the first
full day.

The spiral church tower again.

Many canal  home owners have boats.

This building looks different on cloudy and sunny days.

I loved this bridge!

Another modern building on the waterfront.

After our tour, we went back to the hotel to checkout before exploring some more. Veera took us to the waterfront and explained some of the concerns with some of the new buildings. The Opera  House, which we saw when we went to the Amelienborg Castle, is right across the canal and its construction was controversial. The man who owns Maersk, a major worldwide shipping company, donated the funds to build it, but also wanted to control siting and design to the dismay of the locals. The new theater (photo above), on the opposite side of the canal, was better received. They needed a parking lot, but built it at the canal level with a large  open space on top and glorified shipping crates that become cafeterias when it is nice out and the whole area is  a great  outdoor space for the city, beyond the value of parking and theater. 

Then we walked to a pedestrian and bike draw bridge, called the kissing bridge, because the piers roll apart sideways and they say it looks like the two sides are kissing when they come back together. It was estimated to cost $37M dollars, but the plan was delayed for 3 years, doubling the price. The hotshot designers and engineers miscalculated when they built it and it initially didn't meet in the middle. Plus the design required the bikers to make 2 serious sharp lane shifts from the sides to the middle and back and extra signage was need to keep the bikers from tumbling off.

If you look carefully, the two sections of the bridge meet
just above the rightmost lower window of the building.

The red and white warning stripes were added for bike safety.

On the way to a small outdoor food court, Veera showed us an unusual 'art project'. It is 2 geodesic domes with short doors that are connected. Both are large enough to stand up in, but the second is the focus. From the outside, the second larger dome looks pretty disreputable, but inside, it has mirror panels on the floor and a few on the top. The other panels are lined with painted or fused glass in shades of mostly blue with some green, yellow, and red.

The two domes don't look like much from out here.

Jim crawls through the tiny opening.

The interior is almost psychedelic.

After lunch, we had another 2 hours before we needed to leave for the overnight ferry to Oslo, so we walked to the shopping street in search of the Magnum store we saw yesterday. On the way, we saw the Guiness Book of Records attraction that was included in our Copenhagen card, so in we went. I am not sure what I thought I would see, but it was a LOT of reading with the occasional video and we were not sad to be done and ambled back to the hotel and chatted with fellow travelers as we waited.

We transferred to and boarded the ferry around 3:30 pm. The cabin door was a challenge to open because it took a lot more force on the door handle than we anticipated, but we finally figured it out. There 4 beds here (2 upper, 2 lower, one of which is also a sofa).  We explored all the upper decks and after dinner, went to the duty free store at Veera's suggestion because she said the wine on the ship is a  lot cheaper than in Norway, so I stocked up just a bit. There is no internet unless you pay extra, so we are learning to live without external contact for about 18 hours.