Return to Copenhagen

After a full day in Helsingborg, we enjoyed a scenic three hour cruise back to Copenhagen during which we ate our final dinner aboard Emerald Princess. By 9:30 PM, we were off the ship and strolling toward Nyhavn. We carried with us two bottles of Perrier and a bottle Dos Equis which Princess had furnished us as part of our complimentary in room bar setup for being Platinum Members, and we drank them along the walk.

On our way, we passed near the famous Little Mermaid Statue, but no one but me had any interest in seeing it. We laughed a lot as we snaked our way through the streets.

We took a shortcut through a park, but that stopped seeming like a good idea when we encountered a lot of bugs. We pushed on past them and eventually found ourselves behind Rosenborg Castle. It was dark when we reached Cafe Optimisten, where we had one last drink before catching taxis back to the ship.

We headed up to the buffet for a midnight snack to cap off another great day.

The next morning, the line for taxis that could hold four people was slow, but we were rewarded with an excellent cab driver, the aforementioned cabby extraordinaire, Lars Moulton (tel. 20 97 88 99), who told us amusing stories about Copenhagen and Denmark’s history on the drive to the airport.

He said Denmark had recently celebrated the 200th anniversary of their defeat at the hands of Great Britain’s Admiral Nelson, who decimated Denmark’s once great Navy in a surprise attack. Who else, he asked, would be good natured enough to invite their vanquishers to come over and celebrate their own defeat? Maybe the British, he mused, who were similarly good natured people. Certainly not the French, he said.

He talked about the French husband of the Queen of Denmark who never learned to speak the language well despite living there for decades. Lars said the Prince also never came to grips with the fact that he would always be only a Prince, by virtue of the rules of royalty. When the Queen was too ill for a formal reception of dignitaries, it fell upon the Prince and his son, the Crown Prince, to host it. The Prince didn’t like the fact that his son was given the honored place in the reception formalities, by nature of the fact that he would one day be the King. The Prince pouted for months afterwards. “Crazy frogs,” Lars concluded with a laugh.