We took a little walk today. Well, we spent six-and-a-half hours out and about around Copenhagen and covered a little over six miles. Yeah, that’s a slow pace but it includes a stop for coffee, another stop for dinner, a fascinating conversation with a local who had gone to high school in Kirkland, WA and a whole bunch of short breaks to rest the Achilles a little.

The post title is Denmarkian for ‘The Little Mermaid’, a famous statue in the Copenhagen harbor. See below.

Oddly, there was no crab singing ‘Under the Sea’. Turns out this little mermaid comes from a Hans Christian Andersen story as does that other Little Mermaid. But Sebastian the crab was made up for the movie.

We were walking from the mermaid to one of the canals when a stranger approached us and mentioned the nearby museum was really good. We try to blend in but everyone picks us out as Americans instantly. Turns out our stranger spent a lot of time in America, including going to high school in Kirkland. He was fun to chat with, but we skipped the museum anyway.

In approximate order we saw: The Little Mermaid, a fortress, a fountain, guards in fuzzy hats at the royal palace, the Opera House, some really old boats, more canals, the Nyhavn neighborhood, the Christianhavn neighborhood, a hippy commune called Christiania, a fashion photo shoot, the old stock exchange building, more canals, Stogert street again, Danish fast food and the King’s garden.

The highlight was supposed to be Christiania. It’s a hippy commune with its own rules and customs. I think we expected this to be a Danish version of Williamsburg. Instead it seems to be the place to score dope, hash and hash brownies. We spent little time there. Instead we continued walking and got some more good photos of doors and canals. See Smugmug.

Eventually we stopped for dinner at Sunset Blvd, a Danish version of an American fast-food burger joint. We were able to get them to make something gluten-free. It was all so-so, but interesting anyway.

Overall, we got a little too much sun and probably walked more than we should, but just the same, it was a fantastic day.