Hello Monday, Scandinavian Vacation, First Stop Copenhagen

Hello friends, Happy Monday, Labor Day, and September. Sorry for the long silence on the blog. I have been traveling with my husband and nephew. We visited Northern Europe and just got back this past week. We visited five countries, well six if you count the Netherlands but we were only there during our brief stop in Amsterdam. Each country is so unique I will share them with you in separate posts. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Estonia. This is how it went down.

A little more than two weeks ago we left for a long trip to Northern Europe. Our first stop was Copenhagen Denmark. We have been planning this trip since before Covid was a thing. As you know any big trip like this requires so much planning and preparing. For some reason I think as women we get the brunt of this. Before leaving I planned for who would be at the house taking care of the babies and when everyone would be there. I made sure my mother in law was taken care of and would be checked on while we were gone. And that any supplies she needed would be gotten for her. I bought all of the necessary items we needed to take with us, although my husband did buy a few electronic gadgets we needed. Secretly he loves that.

I packed and packed and cleaned because I can’t leave my house dirty when people are going to be there. I caught up on everything at work and felt like I could be gone for a couple of weeks. And we were ready. Oh and my husband packed his suitcase.

We flew out of Knoxville to Atlanta and then to Amsterdam where we would take a shorter flight into Copenhagen. The flights over were very uneventful and all of our luggage made it through. Little did we know we wouldn’t be as lucky on the return flight.

I loved that the Amsterdam airport had this fresh flower market. The tulips were just beautiful.

Also lots of fresh meats and cheeses at the airport. That is not something we see a lot of in the U.S.

Look how tiny our room was. This was in Copenhagen at The Scandic Spectrum Hotel. Other than a small bathroom this was the size of the room. We were there for three days and fortunately didn’t spend a lot of time in the room.

I am always blown away by the amount of food that is on the breakfast bar at European hotels. There is so much that it is hard to choose from. Of course most Europeans make breakfast their biggest meal of the day. There is a lot of fresh meat and vegetables and this particular hotel had chocolate. You know I was all for that.

Our first day out we explored Copenhagen. I have to say I love this city. The people are so nice and friendly. They like to have fun and they enjoy being outdoors.

Kayaking in the canal. So much fun and activity going on. Bicycling is a very popular mode of transportation and who can blame them with gas being about $10.00 American. WOW!!! I also loved all the fresh flowers everywhere. And I loved that so many people wore dresses, short dresses, long dresses, flowy dresses. I loved them all.

See all the bicycles? There are dedicated bicycle lanes everywhere. And you better stay out of them because the cyclists will run you over. They have the same right of way as vehicles.

We saw the Little Mermaid Statue. Our tour guide explained that she has suffered a lot of wear and tear through the years. She has been the target of defacement throughout the years. How sad. But she has been restored each time. The Little Mermaid has been a major tourist attraction since its unveiling in 1913.

This building was near our hotel. Very unique.

We visited Glyptokeshaven. This park has some of the most unusual statues and the most beautiful flowers. It was a perfect day for it with temps in the mid 60’s F.

The next day we visited Christianborg Palace. The Palace has an 800 year-long history as Denmark’s seat of power in Central Copenhagen. This site houses the Danish Parliament, Prime Minister’s office and Denmark’s Supreme Court. The palace is also home to visiting Danish Monarchs.

We also visited Frederiksborg Castle. It was beautiful!!! There was even a moat all around the castle. It was built as a royal residence for King Christian IV of Denmark- Norway in the early 17th century.

I will have more about the other countries we visited in later posts. We started making our way back home last Monday. We flew out of Helsinki Finland which was our last stop on the trip. We left out at 3:15AM, It was a nightmare. Every flight was delayed and ultimately resulted in us missing our last flight which was out of Atlanta. Home is only three hours from Atlanta so we figured if worse came to worse we could just rent a car and drive back. But we were able to get on a later flight out of Atlanta. However it was delayed by about four hours. We finally got home after midnight on Tuesday morning. My luggage came through but Mark and Tyler’s luggage was left behind in Paris. Tyler got his the next day and Mark finally got his on Thursday.

I took off Tuesday and went back to work on Wednesday. Mark still has quite a bit of vacation time left. The rest of the week was spent catching up at work, buying groceries and doing the mountains of laundry we brought home. We had never had so much trouble traveling. Traveling is definitely not for the faint of heart especially international travel. But all in all it was a fantastic trip with so many memories and stories that will last a lifetime.

I am looking forward to catching up on many of my favorite blogs and my own. How have you been? What is going on in your part of the world?

Always remember

Love your day your way!!!