A Stop in Copenhagen

Our first stop on our amazing 12 day Baltic cruise was the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen. We don’t always take shore tours when we make stops on our cruises. This time, however, we decided to take one in each port since we had never been to Europe and we wanted to see all we could in the time we had.

Here in Copenhagen, we took a tour entitled “Copenhagen City Tour and Tivoli Gardens.” It was just as it sounds; a nice tour of the city and then time on our own at Tivoli Gardens. Our first stop was at one of the most popular tourist attractions in Copenhagen, the Little Mermaid statue. The statue was based on the fairy tale written by Denmark native Hans Christian Andersen. The story was then, of course, picked up by Disney and made into the animated movie. Here is The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen.

After a short bus ride, we arrived at the Royal Square which is the residence of the royal family of Denmark. We walked into the square where there were four almost identical palaces in each corner. Our tour guide explained that the since there were no flags flying on any of the palaces, that no one was home at the time. He also told us that the palace on our immediate left was the home of the King and Queen of Denmark, the one on our immediate right was the home of the Crown Prince and Princess and the one adjacent on our right was the home of the Second Son. I asked what the fourth palace was for and he answered “guest palace.” That must be nice to have an entire palace just for guests. He explained that it was mostly used for visiting heads of state. Here are a couple pictures of the Royal Square. The first shows the King and Queen’s residence and the “guest palace” and the second shows the “kids’” houses.

 

We took a short walk along the water back to our bus and we were off to Tivoli Gardens. We chose the excursion that included Tivoli Gardens because Joan and I like to take the occasional trip to Disneyland and it has been said that Tivoli Gardens was one of Walt Disney’s inspirations for Disneyland. The park has been open since 1843 and is the second oldest amusement park in the world. The oldest is also in Denmark. We didn’t have a lot of time so we only rode one ride, the Rutschebanen. That translates to “The Roller Coaster” (original, I know) in English. It is one of the oldest operating roller coasters in the world and actually is operated by a brakeman who rides in the middle of each train. Here is a look at the train coming into the station:

 

Now it was time for some food (what this blog is really all about). The first place we headed was a place called Vaffelbageriet. According to our guide, this place served “Home made waffles, ice cream and pastries.” We really stopped here first because our guide said that he was going to “make station” there. We just wanted to be sure that we still saw someone we knew and were still in the right place. Of course we browsed the menu and saw some interesting waffles. We weren’t getting to Belgium this trip so we thought that this would be a good time. We got what we knew was a Liege style waffle with some rich chocolate on it. Here’s where we stopped and what we got:

 

We decided after that wonderful treat that we really needed something more substantial (backward I know but we really didn’t care). We wanted something a little out of the ordinary and local and after looking up and down our park guide found Bofgrillen. It said in the guide that it served “Danish steak- and pork sandwiches.” Sounded good to us. When we got to the stand we decided that we would order one steak and one pork sandwich and share them both. Here’s the pork sandwich:

It was a sliced pork tenderloin that was topped with something they called “Danish sauce.” It was a mayonnaise based sauce with a little more tanginess. Here is the steak sandwich.

 

It was more like a shredded steak that was served with pickled cucumbers. They were a little less sweet than your ordinary pickle and gave the sandwich a nice crunch when you ate it. All-in-all we liked our local sandwiches.

One of the other nice things about this stop on our tour was that the Hard Rock Café Copenhagen was just outside the gates of Tivoli Gardens. We met our guide about 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave and told him where we would be. We were able to get Joan’s shot glass and pin and as we were leaving the Hard Rock, our group was coming right by. Three Hard Rocks down (Dublin, London, and Copenhagen) and a potential three left to go (Berlin, Helsinki, and Amsterdam).

We headed back to the dock and browsed the shops there. We found a little trinket to put in our entertainment center and also found a small ice cream stand. I took a look at the flavors and found something interesting, licorice ice cream. We decided to split a scoop and here it is:

 

It was very interesting and very good. There were bits of black licorice in with a vanilla ice cream. Just enough to give a good licorice flavor, but not enough to overpower the ice cream. After we finished our ice cream we walked back down the dock, got back on the ship and said goodbye to Copenhagen.

Next time I’ll tell you about the dinner we had on the ship that night and then we’re on to Berlin, Germany.

Until next time,

Mike

A Relaxing Day At Sea

After going non stop from Las Vegas to Philadelphia to Dublin to London to Dover and onto the ship, we finally had a day with nothing going on. As normal on a sea day, we slept in. I’m sure we had some sort of lunch on the Lido deck, but as I mentioned, I can’t describe them all.

Our first sea day was our first formal night in the dining room and that means one thing on a cruise, lobster night. Now I really don’t eat lobster that much, but Joan does. Before we get to that, we have all of our starter courses.

Each night at dinner they bring around the bread basket. My standard order each night is a baguette and a sourdough roll. Here they are on my bread plate:

 

 

Joan and I both started this evening with the Baked Stuffed Mushrooms. There are five small mushrooms served in round dish baked with spinach, romano cheese and herbs. Here’s what it looks like. Don’t worry, the mushrooms are under there.

 

We got different second starters. Joan’s was one of her favorites. She ordered Strawberry Bisque, which is a chilled strawberry soup with fresh mint. We have both said that it really tastes like melted strawberry ice cream. I didn’t get the “in progress” shot of this dish, but they basically put down a bowl with a small bit of strawberry in the center and then pour the soup in at the table. Once they’ve finished, here’s what you get:

 

For my second starter, I again went with one of the pasta main courses served as a starter. I went with the Spaghetti Carbonara. This is spaghetti in a cream sauce tossed with bacon and parmesan cheese. Here is the small starter serving:

 

Now we move on to the main courses. Joan, of course, got the lobster. It was a broiled Maine lobster tail that was served with three jumbo black tiger shrimp, mashed potatoes and broccoli. Here it is with a little ramekin of butter for dipping:

 

 

She liked the lobster so much, she had to ask for a second tail that was of course delivered promptly. I have heard of people ordering as many as eighteen lobster tails, but I have never personally seen more than three.

As for me, as I said, I don’t eat much lobster, so I went for the prime rib. It was served with a couple of onion rings and a baked potato that they topped with sour cream. The prime rib was cooked a wonderful medium rare. The meat itself wasn’t the top tier of beef (we’ll get to that later), but it was still very good. Here’s what I had:

 

 

That was all delicious, but we of course had just a little room left for dessert. One of the great things about the first formal night is the Cherries Jubilee. Smooth vanilla ice cream, which was made even better on this cruise because it was actually gelato, served with dark cherries and flamed in cherry brandy. Here’s what we got:

 

Next time we get to spend the day in Copenhagen, Denmark and find a couple great local foods, plus another dinner on the ship.

Until next time,

Mike