OUR EUROPEAN HOLIDAY - DAY 22 - OUR LAST DAY OF SIGHTSEEING IN COPENHAGEN...

Today was our last full day left in Copenhagen....
Where has the time gone.... it honestly feels like we have just arrived.. The last week has really flown..

For our last day today we decided to do a little more sightseeing around Copenhagen... still so many things for us to explore,  much more than we will manage this trip.  All good reasons to come back to visit Copenhagen again. 

Steve was keen to climb the spire at the "Our Saviour's Church".  I was keen to see the inside of it.  I decided not to do the climb to the top as it was over 400 steps.  Even though I managed it OK the other day, there were no rest breaks on this set of steps and they were all narrow, steep and spiral.  I was going to explore the inside of the church instead.  Imagine my disappointment when we got there to find the church was closed to tourist today because of a funeral.  I did peep in the door and it looked stunning.  Oh well, this is something else I will have to leave until next time..

Steve and Maria were still able to climb to the top and the views of Copenhagen, the lakes and the ocean were really quite stunning.  You could get 360 degree views of the whole of Copenhagen.  Copenhagen is very different to most capital cities in the world.  All of their buildings are around the same height with no sky scrappers in the sky line...  Therefore climbing the many towers gives you amazing views  of the countryside.

 From here we caught the Metro back to Norroport, the main city station.  Maria decided to take us for a walk through the Organic food markets.  It was around lunch time, so this provided the perfect setting to stop and have a lunch break...

We wandered through the markets.  They were both clean and colourful, and smelt amazing.  Lots of different breads, cheeses, pastries, oils and sauces, nuts, herbs, little restaurants, organic ice cream and flowers, lots and lots of beautiful colourful flowers. 

We ended up having a pork roll which included the crackling.  It also had salad, mayo, and mustard sauce.  It was tasty and filling.

Before leaving here, we bought some special danish tea and we picked four different cheeses to try and buy and take home for a wine and cheese afternoon tea when we got home.

From here we walked to Rosenborg Castle.  We were going to do a tour of it this afternoon and check out the crown jewels.  The castle is right in the heart of Copenhagen and it is surrounded by the Kings Gardens.  Unfortunately we only had a few hours, so it was either the castle or the gardens.  We chose the castle as we had already checked out lots of beautiful gardens.

Rosenborg Castle was good, but I think we would have found it more impressive and we would have appreciated it more if we had been to this castle before going to Frederiksborg Castle.

Rosenborg Castle was quite small in comparison to other castles, also the rooms were bleaker even they they were still covered in paintings and had exquisite furnishings in it. 

We toured the ground floor first, took lots of photos. 

 Rather than check out the first and second floor, we decided to go to the basement first and check out the crown jewels, just in case we ran out of time.  Steve was blown away by all the swords, rifles, pistols, and the ages of them.  Some were very decorative and several of them had diamond encrusted handles.  The wealth was unbelievable.

 There was a large ivory display also, some of it was stunning,  all so fine.  Not sure how they managed to do it without breaking it.  One of the Queens had a hobby of carving ivory and her ivory lathe is still in the castle to this day, along with many of her fine pieces.  As beautiful as this all was, it still made me feel a little sad when you think about the number of elephants who lost their lives so that a display like this could be made....

From this level, we headed even deeper down into the basement to check out the crown jewels.  WOW WOW WOW.  Some of the precious stones in the crowns were enormous.  Some of the pieces on display here, we have seen our Princess Mary wear, like the emerald necklace, tiara and earrings..

 One of the crowns weighed over 2kgs.  Can you imagine walking around with that weight on your head for any length of time.

From here we headed back up to the first and second floor.  there were some very ornate pieces of furniture and Steve was pretty impressed with all the inlaid work in the furniture.  I was impressed by the many different an spectacular chandeliers. 

The Great Hall here, although impressive, was not as awe, jaw dropping impressive as Frederiksborg Castle Great Hall.

 We needed to leave around 4.15pm because Pete and Maria were going to a wedding party at 6pm.  Again we walked for hours today and I had no trouble fitting in my 10,000 steps.  I am very very thankful though for my shoe inserts.  They have certainly allowed me to do heaps more walking....

Maria got off the bus the stop before us as she wanted to stop in at the grocery store and pick up some crackers and some wine to have with our cheeses before they had to leave to head out...

I don't think Steve and I minded  a night to ourselves as we still had to wash and pack, sort out what we needed to take for our tour and what we would leave behind until we returned in three weeks time.   I also wanted to finish downloading our photos from the day and upload them before we left.  I knew we would have no computer once we left and I figured the job of downloading all our photos from our European tour would be a huge job so if I had the ones from Denmark done and dusted it would make my job a lot easier when we got home. 

The washing was done, the packing completed and the mission with the photos was accomplished at about midnight.  Pete and Maria were still not home, but it was bedtime for us.  Our last night in Copenhagen...