When we woke the next morning all I wanted to do was hide under the covers. Fortunately for me, a 12pm checkout seems to be standard practice in Europe so I left Dan to wander the streets while I and my lurgy stayed tucked up under the covers for another couple of hours.

When I eventually surfaced and checked out we had about three hours left to wander the streets of Copenhagen. For me this visit to Copenhagen was all about Christmas at Tivoli – I had already paid a visit to Christiania, the Royal Palace, the design museum and Nyhavn, four of Denmark’s attractions. And no. We didn’t visit the little mermaid or any Hans Christian Andersen themed attractions (unless you count the boulevard that bears his name. Our first stop was a coffee house where I could get a cup of tea and something to eat. My tea came as leaves in a strainer and a cup of hot water. Dan’s hot chocolate was warm milk with three sticks of different kinds of chocolate to stir in. We also had chicken and basil, and ham and cheese paninis. Not really the smorebrod I was looking for but I wanted to sit down with a tea more than I wanted smorebrod so it was a pretty good choice in the end.

I decided Dan probably should see  Nyhavn before he left Denmark so we set out towards there on a route  that took us through the forecourt of the palace that is  now the Parliament building – Christiansborg Slot. There was obviously something fairly important going on there. The forecourt was filled with black limousines, most of them with ambassadorial flags. It felt a bit like we shouldn’t be there but the forecourt of the building is clearly a public thoroughfare. Nyhavn is the stuff of picture postcards/ you would have to be a pretty poor photographer to not get a usable shot here.

After our whistle stop sightseeing tour, we headed back through the centre of town. I was still on the hunt for a better beanie, which I found, paid 50 DKR ($10) for and promptly lost it less than an hour later in the train station. What is it with me and hats – I have to find a better system. Dan bought a wallet – which I hope is not the sign of a similar trend to my hats.  After a bit more of a wander we collected our bags and headed to the train station for the train to Hamburg. The border crossing here is actually done on a ferry. Last time I made this journey I hadn’t been aware of the ferry part. I was typing away and had my head phones on and hadn’t noticed that the train had pulled right into a ferry. This time I was keeping an eye out for it. I had particularly booked this train so Dan could experience the train on a ferry phenomenon. 

As we were arriving into Hamburg quite late – about 8pm or so, we decided to have dinner on the ferry. It was just the kind of food you would expect. I had the Bolognese because I didn’t feel like anything fried – the sauce was OK but I probably would have just preferred a big bowl of spaghetti. Dan mad a better choice – the bratwurst and chips. I fear even Dan might be sick of hotdogs after this trip. In the queue at the ferry bistro, the guy who served us commented on Dan’s Dropkick Murphys t-shirt. That’s when I realised we had committed the cardinal sin – we were both wearing the same band t-shirt – I granted mine is a For Boston t-shirt so only true fans would have made the link. But we never do that – we must have been tired. (Tessie – Dropkick Murphys – written for the Red sox World Series win and one of my fave Murphys tracks)

When we got off the train in Hamburg, I was sick and tired and cranky and we couldn’t access wi-fi anywhere in the system so the GPS wouldn’t access a Hamburg map. The maps at the station were pretty unhelpful . There we were in the middle of the biggest train station we had yet experienced and we had no idea how to get to the hotel. Eventually we worked out vaguely which direction to head in. Between us and the hotel was a quite seedy part of town (no not the Reperbahn). The street was littered with casinos and kebab shops and women standing in doorways along what was a very busy street. Sure, they weren’t dressed the same way as on William Street but it is very cold here. Of course they could just have been outside smoking but it was only women. At any rate, it’s not really somewhere I would have felt comfortable lingering at any rate. We arrived at our hotel, the Arcotel, cold and tired and ready for bed. Unfortunately the hotel had overbooked and had to send us to another hotel further away from the train station. The hotel paid for a taxi to get us to the other hotel, The Scandic. It was a pretty good hotel, obviously newly fitted out. It was good we had dinner on the ferry. By this time it was 9:30pm and still suffering from a dreadful lurgy all I wanted to do was sleep. (When Doves Cry – Prince – some 80s tunes definitely stand the test of time – this is one of them, even if its creator isn’t)

Christmas themed activities – 7  War museums and model shops – 1.5