Back to Copenhagen, Part One

This year, we spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Copenhagen.  Last year, even though Darren had the time off, he was starting a new job so we just enjoyed some activities around Zurich.  Darren had wanted to go to Copenhagen again to see the things that we missed, so we decided the long weekend was a good opportunity to go.  We were especially excited to see the city during the Christmas season and it didn't disappoint.  We had a great time and in typical Darren and Amanda fashion, we walked all over and crammed in lots and lots of things.

We arrived in Copenhagen in the late morning, but after finding our hotel and dropping off our bags, we weren't in the downtown area until the afternoon.  We first stopped to get some lunch in the shopping area at a sandwich shop that I liked the last time we were here, but in only a few short months, it was gone.  We ate at another sandwich shop was just around the corner, but it wasn't as good.  I wonder what happened to the other store.  After lunch, we walked around the shopping area to see the Christmas window displays.

The shopping area in Copenhagen, decorated for Christmas

A Christmas display from a department store

Another pretty window display at the Illum department store

 We bought these great city passes called the Copenhagen Card, which gives you access to a lot of the major attractions and unlimited public transportation travel for a flat rate.  With all the things we saw in three days, we more than made back the money we spent buying the card.  We recommend this card to anyone traveling to Copenhagen.  Our first stop using the Copenhagen Card was to Christiansborg Palace, which as Darren talked about last time, houses all three branches of the Danish government.

Cute waterway and buildings on the way to Christiansborg

Outside part of Christiansborg

Able to goof off around the palace because all the attractions were empty during this off-season

You can tour two different places at Christiansborg.  There are the old ruins of previous palaces and some of the rooms in the current palace that are still used for state functions.  We first went into the catacombs to see the ruins of past Christiansborgs.  This poor palace has burned down several times.  A castle was first built here in the 12th century and marked the founding of Copenhagen.  Since then, there have been several castles and palaces built on the same site.  The current Christiansborg Palace was finished in the early 20th century.  The catacombs feature the foundations of the previous structures.

An example of an early Christiansborg Castle

The foundations of Christiansborg Castle

The catacombs were mildly interesting, but mostly introduced us to the Danish favoring of low lighting.  Several castles and even one art gallery suffered greatly from lack of lighting.  I guess they are trying to minimize damage from lights.  Anyways, after we left the ruins, we took a guided tour of some of the rooms in Christiansborg Palace.  Most of the rooms are still used today for functions involving the royal family.  Pictures were not allowed, so I will just have to tell you about the things that we saw.  The palace has a special exhibit up right now revolving around the dessert part of royal dinners from older times all the way to today.  One room had a great long table elaborately decorated as it would have been back in the day and it showed how the desserts were served on beautiful and elaborate serving dishes.  Another room displayed the china that the royal family still uses for their parties.  They even had a display in one room that talked about how ice cream was made before the invention of freezers. Our tour guide explained that having ice cream at your dinner meant you were very wealthy because you had to have a special pantry just to store ice that was made in the winter to make and keep ice cream cold.  Who knew such a simple and every day treat we enjoy today used to be such a luxury!

The back of Christiansborg Palace after our tour, it's only about 4 o'clock when this was taken

 After the tour, we stopped in this small museum next to the palace for just a bit because it was almost closing time.  The Thorvaldsens Museum, which was the first museum building in Denmark, features sculptures and plaster models from the famous Danish artist Bertel Thorvaldsen.  As you might remember from before, Thorvaldsen sculpted the Christus statue.

Having some fun in the totally empty museum

A plaster model of the Christus statue used to make the real thing

The museum was only mildly interesting, but it was free with our pass, so we felt it was worth it to at least go inside and look.  We left the museum when it was closing at 5 pm and were sad by how dark it was, but happy that the shopping street decorations were lit up.  I will always be glad to live in the Northern Hemisphere when the most depressing time of year, climate-wise, is combined with the happiest time of year, Christmas.  We walked down some different shopping streets to enjoy the lights and see some stores that I did not get to go into last time like the Lego store.

Copenhagen's shopping streets decorated beautifully for Christmas

After that, we had dinner at a restaurant along the waterfront street called Nyhavn where Darren tried a traditional Danish meal of three different kinds of herring on bread.  It was good of him to try it, but I don't think he will be ordering it again. ;)  After that, we headed back to our hotel room to sleep.  The next morning, after some delicious Danish pastries at Lagkagehuset, we went to the Danish Resistance Museum, which chronicles living in Denmark during WWII.  It was a great museum to help understand what it was like living under German occupation and how Danish people formed a resistance as the war went on.

Items like these, which showed support for the Allies, were banned during the occupation

Darren with an armored vehicle that was used to attack the Germans towards the end of the war

After the museum, we went to see two more castles before lunch.  We went to Amalienborg Palace again, but this time we went into part of the palace to see some rooms with royal family used to use.  We mainly were allowed to see old sitting rooms and offices of previous rulers.

Part of Amalienborg Palace

The study of one of the kings in the 20th century

An even older study featured a dead polar bear, head and all

We walked from the more modern Amalienborg to the older Rosenborg castle.  This castle was where the royal family lived during the 17th century and where the crown jewels are now kept.  I just looked up this castle and came across this lovely page that relates to my previous observation.  Apparently, I'm not the only one who is puzzled by all the low lighting.  Anyways, in addition to touring the basement where the crown jewels are kept, you can also walk around the upper floors to see the castle's rooms.

The old castle is situated in a lovely garden with cute houses all around

Me in front of Rosenborg Castle

An old room filled with tons of paintings, which were even on the doors

The bathroom walls decorated with hundreds of beautiful danish porcelain, only the best for the king

Old thrones with the famous Danish lion statues

The basement houses the Rosenborg wine, which is still served at royal dinners, but apparently tastes awful

My favorite crown, which is decorated so intricately

Some more beautiful jewels worth millions

We ate a late lunch at this adorable homey cafe called Mormors, which is near Amalienborg Palace.  The name Mormor means mother's mother in Danish, which is what Darren and his siblings called their Danish grandmother.  So it was cute to go in there.  We saw some more amazing things after lunch, including our favorite part of the trip, but I will save that for the next post!

Ladies London Trip

The first week of November, I went on a ladies' trip to London with some of my friends here in Zurich.  The ladies here try to do some kind of getaway weekend with friends once a year and I think it is a fantastic idea, especially when you live in Europe and places like London, Paris, and Rome are a short plane ride away.  This year they decided to go to London and I was lucky enough to be invited along.  I was so excited that they had picked to go to London because it is one of my favorite cities and I wanted to go one more time before we left.

The eight of us flew to London Thursday night and stayed up late chatting in our beautiful four-bedroom apartment we had rented.  The next morning, everyone popped out of bed early, got ready, and headed out the door to Oxford Street to go shopping.  London is an excellent place to go shopping in Europe because they have a huge variety of stores and even though the British pound is stronger than the Swiss franc, things are priced cheaper, so you still get a deal.  We first stopped at the Riding House Cafe near Oxford Street for a great breakfast. (A quick side note, these pictures were taken from a bunch of different people on the trip)

My friend, Meike, showing off her great breakfast

I ordered eggs benedict and the hollandaise sauce was to die for

The whole group at breakfast

Some of us at the cool counter

We then spent the rest of the morning and the afternoon shopping.  After some successful buys, we headed back to our apartment to drop off our purchases and get ready to go to tea and a show.  I took some pictures of our adorable street and building where our apartment was. (Thanks to Julie for finding such a great place!)

Our cute street in the Marylebone neighborhood

The building where we stayed

Some of the ladies in front of our building

We left our apartment and went to the Haymarket Hotel near Trafalgar Square for our tea time.  We sat at a great oval table where we were served things like fresh mint tea, tiny cucumber sandwiches, fresh scones, and delicious sweet and savory desserts.  The hotel had a great ambiance and wasn't too loud, so we were able to enjoy great conversation over our wonderful treats.  Going to tea was a perfect girls' trip activity and it was my favorite part of the weekend! (Thanks to Tanya for booking it!)  We stayed for two hours before we headed over to the Savoy Theater to see the musical, Legally Blonde.

Our spread complete with pretty china

Enjoying the great British tradition of tea time

A group picture of us all dressed up at the Haymarket Hotel

Heading into the theater to see our show

Thanks to Megan, who booked our tickets for the show, we had fantastic seats at a great price.  The musical was fun, with a better second than first half, and was a good choice for our trip.  After the show, we took the very busy Tube back to the apartment.  The next day, Saturday, we did some more shopping in the morning.  No trip to London is complete without a stop at Harrod's, so we headed over there first thing.  We spent the most time in the Christmas section, which was already on display, buying up some Christmas things. We all were hungry after that, so we tried to go to a place I had suggested, but found it was completely full.  Luckily, just around the corner was a great Thai place that ended up being a good, if not better, alternative to our original choice!

Us outside of busy Harrod's

We took the subway over to Covent Garden after that to go to some others stores.  We only spent a short time there because we had to rush over to our next great activity of the trip.  We had decided to "go to a show" that was actually more like a treasure hunt.  We met a man at the Tate Modern who said he needed our help locating where a group of thieves had hidden some money.  We used clues to get to the next location where someone had the next clue for us.  Sometimes the clues were hard, but sometimes we figured it out right away, so it was all fun in the end.  It was different than what you would normally do on a trip, but it ended up being a great time since we had the right group of people.

Figuring out one of the clues!

This was me most of the trip, the trusty (or as my mom would say, bossy) navigator

After running all over the South Bank, we were ready for dinner.  We made our way back over to Covent Garden for a great tapas-style meal at Kopapa, which was voted Best New Restaurant by Time Out Magazine.  Our favorites dishes were the sea scallops, the pork belly, and the plantains, among others.  As tapas dishes are usually small, we had to order many for all the people we had, but we still felt like the place was reasonably priced.  I think we are all used to the sticker shock of food costs in Zurich, so everything in London just seemed so cheap.  I'm sure my perspective will change, though, after I move back to the land of cheap and plenty in a few months.

A great picture by Michelle at the restaurant

The wonderfully-decorated street our restaurant was on

We stopped for ice cream in Covent Garden and then went back to the apartment to get ready to go dancing!  We all went to an 80s club and it was so much fun.  I love dancing and thankfully, so do my friends.  We woke up a bit later on Sunday morning after our fun night out, but we still made it to our Sunday brunch reservation, even with my mix up of the London bus system.  Again, we had another great meal because the English know how to do breakfast right.

Our group at Sunday brunch at The Modern Pantry

After brunch, the group split up where some went to do more shopping, and some went to the British Museum.  I went with the group to the British Museum and we took the quick ninety-minute tour of the highlights there.  

Being silly at the British Museum

We sadly had to go back to the apartment to grab our suitcases and take our shuttle to the airport to head home.  It was a fantastic trip.  Oh London, how I love you.  I loved how we did such a variety of fun things, especially things that you don't do when it's just you and your husband traveling.  Everyone was very accommodating and flexible so that we didn't have any major problems and mishaps the whole trip.  They even let me be my bossy self and navigate for the group most of the time.  It was so so fun and I'm going to start saving my pennies now to join them next year wherever they go. :) 

Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany

One day in October my friend, Michelle, and I went to the quaint German town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  The town name is quite a mouthful, but means "Red fortress above the Tauber [River]" in German.  It is a major tourist destination because it has mostly remained unchanged from its major growth into a bustling town in the 15th century.  For example, the wall surrounding the whole town is completely intact along with other major buildings.  Rothenburg is just west of Nürnberg (Nuremberg), so it took us about four hours to get there, but it was well worth the drive!  What an adorable town!

The cute town of Rothenburg ab der Tauber

Our first stop was to get some lunch.  We didn't have any recommendations for a restaurant, so we just stopped in the first one that looked good.  We ended up having a great meal at a small restaurant off the main tourist path where it seemed all the locals went.  We enjoyed all the comforts of Germany including hearing high German and eating inexpensively.  At the end, we shared a delicious apple strudel.

Our delicious dessert

After lunch, we climbed up some steps and walked along the outer wall for a great view of the town.  We finally went into the main part of town where all the tourists were.

Part of the town defenses

Enjoying the chilly, but sunny day in Germany

Cuteness all around

Heading towards the main square: Marktplatz

Another goal of the trip was to find the famed Christmas store that people talk about visiting in Rothenburg.  Michelle had done a little research before we left and had read about this famous Christmas store, but did not know exactly what it was or where it was.  So as we toured the cute town, we kept our eye out for any Christmas stores.  Near Marktplatz we finally stumbled upon what we were looking for.  The Christmas store is called Käthe Wohlfahrt and let me tell you, this store did not disappoint!  This is *the* Christmas store of all Christmas stores.  First of all, the store is so big, it takes up three floors in one store and has two floors in an overflow store across the street!  I don't know the history of the company, but I do know that these Rothenburg stores are their main (and maybe even original) stores.  They sell all kinds of Christmas things including traditional German Christmas decorations, such as straw ornaments, nutcrackers, Schwibbogen, "Christmas pyramids", and more.

The overflow store entrance

The entrance to the main store

These stores were just incredible and magical.  They decorated them so beautifully, but you can't take pictures inside, so visit the website if you want to see.  Michelle and I went nuts in the store and wanted to buy everything in it.  I bought one ornament, but I want to take Darren there soon (they have other locations) so we can pick out more things.  Overall, it was a great day trip!  It really is a fantastic town to visit and I'm glad Michelle introduced me to it.