Day 4 - Copenhagen

Day 4
- Quotes of the day
- A dip in the harbor
- How we know the Danes aren’t “packing”
- Lunch on the canal (again)
- The closest we’ll come to seeing an opera
- Double-dipping
- L’Atrio

I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.

And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"

DB and I switch rooms, so she can get the feel of a harder mattress. I get a new experience as well: awake at 11:45 and the TV is on, to some form of English language self-help program. Is it on some form of cosmic timer? Reach for the remotes (yes, there are two) and try the power button on both…nada. Finally, get out of bed and pull the power cord out of the socket, the TV goes dark and I go back to sleep. This episode was not made up.

Decaf and steamed milk from the aerocino (see pic), heaven without the jitters (½ pound, $11)


We mount up (the saddle sores are getting a bit less emphatic) and head for downtown for some gallery visits. (Aside: we see a woman wheeling a vacuum cleaner across an intersection, shades of Once, a quite charming little – and short - movie.) Galleries are for the most part closed for summer vacation and the few that are open aren’t showing particularly interesting work.

Then visit the Design Museum, and they have a few emerging jewelry artists on display, complete with videos of them demonstrating how to put their pieces on, quiet well done. As we’re touring the show, DB manages to see a modern set of china, it is our set from when we got married (almost 40 year later, it still seems modern, we’re the ones showing the age!). And (REO, remember this one?) an inflatable chair from the 70s. The person in the gift shop gives us a tip on a jewelry store to visit, not far from the main shopping district.



Off to lunch at a restaurant recommended by our neighbors. On the way, we hear shouting, and then we see a guy running up and kicking a car, several times, more shouting, and finally the kicked car drives off. The guy left is still shouting, finally gets in his car and drives off. Can’t imagine anyone in the US attacking another car physically without first making sure a) the guys in the car aren’t armed and b) making sure the getaway route was clear for immediate use as necessary if a) turns out to be wrong assumption.

Continue on to the restaurant, it’s full, no possibility of getting in (they are a lunch-only place), and so we make a reservation for tomorrow. Back on the bikes, over the bridge and there we are at the best bakery in all of Scandinavia, tuna and hummus sandwiches, two drinks, and a “horn” (rhubarb and marzipan deconstructed croissant-like roll with firmer dough and less butter). $27. Eat outside on the edge of a canal, watching the tour boats full of people watching us eat.

Buy postcards and stamps, $3 for combo to advise those in US we are having a great time (about 30% higher than in Germany) a week after we’re having the great time. Buy the 10 ride ticket in the subway for future use (good for buses, ferries, and metro), $27. About the same as Berlin if you just did two rides a day (of course, we were doing way more than that, and going longer distances, so Berlin is considerably cheaper).

Back to the house for a rest, the neighbors drop by to see how we’re doing and bring over a hair dryer (DB very happy) and some paper for the printer (both of us happy, need it for when we are printing out directions), and to set up a date for later in the week to take us sailing (WOW! totally unexpected), depending on the weather. They marvel at how many things we have already tried at the bakery, now maybe they are worried about the weight distribution for the sail and a car tour is going to be the selected option.

Head across the street for the 4pm English tour of the opera house. It’s a spectacular building inside (and out) and the tour takes us all over including backstage. $40 for two takes about 1.5 hours, and well worth it. Highly recommended!

Decide to head for another local spot for our big eating splurge on the trip (no, this does not mean we’re going to the bakery and ordering extra desserts). Ride bike over to make reservation, we don’t have a phone that we trust to use at low cost.

Back for afternoon dip; end up chatting with three Danes that have pulled over for their own dip after rowing around. Rowing is big here, many clubs, most people do it as exercise rather than competition. We see many crews, some where the average age is well over 70, and most crews are made up of both men and women. This crew, one guy around 35 and a couple in their 50s, they take turns with two rowing and one steering (looks like a coxswain). They pull out beers and offer me one, I resist since I know much wine is coming my way soon.

We ride to L’Atrio, it is an offshoot of a much more well known, fancy Italian spot. Turns out to be a multi-course meal, meaning the courses have courses. We also do a wine pairing, one of young wines and one of recommended wines (and skip the wines they only serve if you pay a ton of money for pairing). Maitre Davio ends up giving us mostly the recommended wine pairing even though we ordered two different pairings to taste compare.

The food is excellent, the antipasti consists of seven different “tastes” and the best might be the bruschetta (Maitre Davio doesn’t call it that), closely followed by the on-the-toothpick pate, fennel, and chile combo. Also get black rice topped with red and yellow peppers that is extremely good.

Then two pastas, both exceptional, ziti with pears and then giant tortelloni with potato that is the best dish of the night. Main course is stuffed lamb (mercifully small) and a ratatouille that is very odd.

Best wine of the night is a sangiovese, followed by the white that we don’t recognize.

We can’t make it to the cheese and crème caramel courses, we’re too full. Total cost (including 4% surcharge for foreign Visa), $260. Of note, we get to restaurant at 7:30; in Germany we’d be first, in Denmark only one single woman came in after us. Only one person went out to smoke (yep, the single woman). We dressed “nicely” and there were people in t-shirts and shorts. Nowhere in Germany added a surcharge for using Visa (mostly because so many places in Germany refused to take Visa). And, most importantly, we rode our bikes to and from dinner, in Germany they seemed to walk to and from restaurants (mostly because I think they were eating in their own hood).