A difference from the previous visit to Copenhagen in 2017 was that we were docked considerably further away from the city than before. This too will factor into the third part of this tour. Fortunately, though, we’d be using a bus to get to the start of the walking tour and, as it happened, this would provide some useful guidance for the route back to the ship later in the day. That you can read about in the final part. I am really bigging up the final part. It’ll be the bit where we got pissed off at Princess Cruises. But I’ve said too much already!

So, let’s get on with the organised walking tour of Copenhagen.

We’ll start with the view from our balcony on Sky Princess. It was a grey day in Copenhagen with the weather forecast for some light rain at some point.

After a drive from the cruise port we were debarked from the bus near The Little Mermaid; one of many groups and individuals arriving to view one of Denmark’s most-visited attractions. Yes, we’d seen it before, but it was nice to see it again, given its iconic status.

There are some people who will tell you that The Little Mermaid is disappointing in real life and that it is smaller than you might think. And to those people I would simply point out that the clue is in the name. It would be like getting disappointed with the pensive pose of Rodin’s The Thinker. And you never hear people mutter “Well, I thought The Little Mermaid was generally okay, and I didn’t have any issue with it being little, but that fish tail thing. What’s with that?” Anyway, the sculptor was Edvard Eriksen and it was first unveiled to the Danish public and the world at large in 1913.

Our walk next took us to Kastellet, meaning Citadel. Kastellet is a fortress, originally built in the seventeenth century but with a number of extensions and modifications since that time. Its form is that of a pentagon with bastions, in a similar design to many others around Europe at the time. Indeed, we have similar, partial fortifications in this same shape in our home city of Portsmouth (see: Old Portsmouth Shoreline Walk), although Copenhagen’s are far better preserved.

The moat around the fortifications was particularly photogenic, helped by that light grey cloud that added some nice, polarised reflections.

Kastellet is used as military barracks but during its opening hours it’s free for anyone to wander through the streets that make up the interior of the structure. As we reached the opposite side of the city’s fortress to that we’d entered we got a good view of some of the active military presence still there.

By now we were on the southern side of Kastellet and on our way to the next dedicated photo stop for this Copenhagen walking excursion. Our route there took us past more of the moats that protect the citadel and afforded us some nice views of St Alban’s Church. You might be thinking “Weird. Sounds a bit English.” If so then you get a gold star and a VIP pass to Anglican Heaven because, yes, St Alban’s is Denmark’s only Anglican church and is known to the locals as “the English church” too. The church dates from the late nineteenth century, built as part of the growing connection between the UK and Denmark through royal marriage, but services had been given in English for well over a hundred years prior to that due to increasing European trade and the number of English-speakers in Denmark in general.

As befits a military establishment, there were a couple of military statues that we passed as we continued our walk. The first of those was Our Fallen, a statue commemorating the dead of World War II, designed by Svend Lindhart and erected in 1957. The second was a bust of Winston Churchill, sculpted by Oscar Nemon in 1955. In fact, this parkland area just beside Kastellet is named Churchillparken as thanks for British assistance in liberating Denmark from the Germans.

A very short walk from there brought us to the next point of interest on this Copenhagen walking tour: Gefion Fountain. The name comes from the Norse goddess, Gefjon, generally associated with ploughing, hence the presence of oxen in the sculptures. The fountain was designed by Anders Bundgaard who sculpted the figures in the very final years of the nineteenth century with the main basin of the fountain being finished off in the first years of the twentieth century ahead of its first switching-on in 1908. The commission of the fountain in 1897 tied in with the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Carlsberg Foundation who donated the fountain to the city.

The Gefion Fountain depicts the legend of the forming of the island of Zealand on which Copenhagen is located. The goddess was promised however much land she could plough in one night by the Swedish king who had not reckoned on her turning her four sons into oxen in which to help out. The land was then scooped up and thrown into the sea where it now stands.

This area of Copenhagen that we were now in is called Nordre Toldbod, the former site of the customs house that collected taxes from merchants. These days it’s more a basic waterfront area but with a few notable sights and ghosts of its former status. A statue of Mercury atop one of the gates to the former port area is by the nineteenth century sculptor Carl Christian Peters; a statue of Neptune sits opposite. The dragon street lights were particularly nice. Installed in 1892 they were designed by Vilhem Dahlerup.

Nordre Toldblod is also one of the best spots in Copenhagen to see Her Danish Majesty’s Yacht Dannebrog. This early 1930s yacht serves as the official Danish Royal Family’s residence for their summer cruises and state visits overseas. Royal quarters aboard are all aft of the funnel.

I have a fondness for sculptures and statues (but I keep it quiet and you wouldn’t know if I didn’t take every chance to mention the sculptors and dates and names of everything I see like you actually cared about them at all) so a few more here along the waterfront to mention. The bronze replica of Michaelangelo’s David is part of the Royal Cast Collection which are mainly housed in the building beyond it. This collection was founded by Carlsberg once again, who had a keen interest in art. More interesting to me, but I suspect not of interest to anyone in our walking tour group who all wandered past it without a second glance or any offered information from our guide, was the post-war abstract form in concrete called Toldboden by sculptor Søren Georg Jensen. Initially working with naturalistic forms (and he also created a replica of David) his work became more influenced by modernist and functionalist designs.

The last tourist spot in Copenhagen that I’ll cover in this first part of our walking tour of the city is Amalienborg. This large, open, octagonal space is surrounded by palaces for the Royal Family. The lack of flags flying when we visited suggests that it wasn’t occupied by any of them at the time. In the centre of the eight-sided square is a statue of King Frederik V mounted on a horse; sculpted by Jacques-Francois-Joseph Saly, this was erected in 1771. Should you arrive at Amalienborg around midday then you might just see the changing of the guards taking place. We passed some by as we headed rather quickly through because, as you might be able to tell from the photos, that forecast for light rain at some point I mentioned earlier magically transformed itself into a surprisingly determined downpour just at that moment.

We were a little soggy as we headed off for the remainder of our walking tour, passing briefly on the way out of the Amalienborg area by the bust of Roosevelt, unveiled in 1953 and sculpted by Jo Davidson. If you were looking for military connections and statuary on a web post about walking around Copenhagen then you’ve certainly come to the right place.

In the next part of this cruise travelogue series I’ll conclude the organised walking tour of Copenhagen that we undertook. However, you already know that there are three parts to this walking tour write-up so that suggests that there’s something a little unorganised to follow on from that. But what is it? You’ll just have to wait to find out.

Copenhagen is awash with some great examples of architecture, and Danmarks Nationalbank designed by Arne Jacobsen was one such piece that caught my eye more than the rest of our tour group or guide who were all far more interested in the statue beside which we next gathered. If you do a search for Arne Jacobsen chairs using your preferred search system of choice then you’ll realise that you’ll have seen his modernist designs already, I’m sure.

But back to that statue, now. Niels Juel was a Danish admiral and something of a naval hero to the Danes following successful defences of Copenhagen and attacks on Sweden. He was responsible for advances in the reputation of the Danish Navy, and died at the age of 68 as chief of the admiralty. He and his wife were buried in the church below the photos of his statue here, but we headed swiftly past that to the next site of interest.

Just up the road was the seat of the Danish Parliament and home to its Supreme Court, Christiansborg Palace. A palace or castle has stood in this position in Copenhagen since the twelfth century with the first being attributed to Bishop Absalon in 1167. From 1417 ownership of whichever building was on this site transferred – not willingly, mind – from the church to the royal family. The 1730s saw the construction of the first Christiansborg Palace. But there was a fire near the end of the century. The second Christiansborg Palace was built and completed in the early 1800s. But there was another fire near the end of the century. Sticking two fingers up to fate, a third Christiansborg Palace was constructed, and that’s the majority of what still stands today. Unless there’s been a fire since I wrote this.

King Frederik VII was the only king to live in the second Christiansborg Palace and it’s his statue that stands out in front of the present-day building.

Moving on from the palace, we headed in the direction of The King’s New Square, on the way passing by a statue of another former resident of the Christiansborg Palace spot, the first to live there, Bishop Absalon, who managed to have his fingers in all the pies of the church, politics, and the military.

The King’s New Square, or Kongens Nytov, is the largest public square in Copenhagen, and dates from 1670 in the reign of Christian V, of whom there is a statue in the centre. The Danes do like a statue of a person on a horse. A number of important buildings face onto the square, but easily the most attractive and impressive architecturally was the Royal Danish Theatre, constructed in 1874.

Odd Fellows Mansion was the next destination on this walking tour of Copenhagen, but not just to stand outside and admire the mid-eighteenth century Rococo design. A bonus of our walking tour was actually getting to eat a Danish pastry in Denmark, and with this being a tour organised for people on a cruise ship it also provided a good spot to use the toilets. A nice enough building inside, but nothing spectacular if I’m being honest, and I’m always being honest.

We would have just one more sight to see in Copenhagen on this organised walk and that would be on the way back to meet the bus that would (or could) take us back to the ship. We headed through the lovely green space of the oldest park in the city, the King’s Garden. It’s alternatively known as the Rosenborg Castle Gardens and the reason for that will become clear, but first a revisit to the Danish fixation with statues and that promised mention of Hans Christian Andersen once more. The bronze work of art dates from 1880.

Another statue that caught our eye was that of Little Gunver by the nineteenth century sculptor Theobald Stein. Little Gunver relates to a song about a young girl drawn to the bottom of the sea by a deceitful merman. How lovely.

Rosenborg Castle was the impossible-to-miss landmark that sat at the far end of the gardens on our way through the parkland, and is an early seventeenth century Dutch Renaissance style building commissioned by Christian IV, one of many of his architectural projects in and around Copenhagen. It’s easy to see how similar it is to Frederiksborg Castle that we’d visited on our previous cruise to Denmark back in 2017.

And with that our walking tour of Copenhagen came to an end. Sort of. Well, not quite. We could have got on the bus that was waiting to take our tour group back to Sky Princess but our guide mentioned to us that a paid-for shuttle bus service was running between the ship and the city and gave us directions from where to pick it up. We’d known about this bus as it had been mentioned on the ship – “There will be a paid shuttle service and you can buy tickets on board” it had said in the daily programme of events – and we knew that we had several hours before the ship would leave. We realised that we’d have the chance to drop into a bar and grab some local beers before heading back. What could be nicer? What could possibly go wrong?

You’ll have to read the rather unplanned part three of the Copenhagen walking tour to find out.

Excellent, we thought, and I’ll explain why.

• Denmark has some decent craft ale places.
• We like craft ale.
• On the ship they’d mentioned that there was a shuttle bus service in operation running between the cruise terminal and a road very close to where a particular craft ale bar was located.
• On the ship they’d mentioned that you could pay (or flash your medallion, or whatever) when boarding the bus; no need to book.
• On our tour our guide told us “Anyone who doesn’t want to take the excursion bus back, I can show you where the shuttle bus is.”

We had a plan! With our walking excursion done we’d treat ourselves to a few beers and take the shuttle bus back to the ship. Sounds simple. Couldn’t be simpler. Nothing could possibly go wrong unless the ship and our guide had given us duff information, but what are the odds of that happening?

So, very quickly we found ourselves in Skaal and not so quickly after that – because the choice on offer was, well, see for yourself – we found ourselves enjoying some lovely craft beer. Nice, clean venue; wide range of styles of beer. You couldn’t ask for a better place to recuperate a little after all that walking on the tour earlier in the day.

We stayed for more than one because the first drinks were nice enough to encourage that sort of behaviour in us, but then we contemplated whether to look for somewhere else or make an earlier-than-necessary return to the ship. We opted to head back as we’d done a lot of walking and our hoodies were still a little damp from the torrential rain that had caught us in the morning.

And here’s where things took a turn for the very annoying.

At the shuttle bus stop there was a shuttle bus sitting there. It looked like one for Princess but we weren’t sure, and at the time we arrived there was nobody up front so we could have got on and chanced it, but we’re honest and cautious people and knew that we needed to pay as per the ship’s instructions. A man appeared after a few minutes and asked for our ticket.

“We don’t have one. We were on a tour that’s dropped us off in the city and they said we could pay for a ticket on board to get back.”

“Oh no. You can only buy tickets for the bus at the cruise port. I’m not allowed to let anyone without them on.”

Yeah, to say we were angry with the information that had been provided by Princess Cruises to us both on the ship and on the tour was an understatement. The man there was apologetic but his hands were tied. He gave us options and some finger-pointing in the rough direction we’d need: train or taxi, because buses didn’t go where we had to go, apparently. The train would have only got us so far, and he didn’t know the number of any taxi firms. Uber proved to be a non-starter, but we had enough time and enough mild fury to power our legs to start walking back anyway. There was not much in the way of sightseeing on this unexpected walk of some of Copenhagen’s streets and the only conversation was around how pissed off we were with Princess.

Let’s try to bring out some positive aspects of this unplanned, unwanted, and infuriating walk back to the cruise terminal. Never let it be said: “Yeah, that Mark only knows how to rant.”

We like modern art and street art, and on the bus from the ship in the morning we’d passed a set of sculptures by the roadside that our guide had mentioned briefly in passing. These were the Toddlers on the Road of Life by Bjørn Nørgaard. The four sculptures represent a child, an adolescent, an adult, and a pensioner, with the materials and decorations reflecting those ages and the brightness of the sculptures and the slowly darkening gold showing life’s effects on aspirations and experiences. We loved them, and if we hadn’t had to walk then we wouldn’t have seen them up close, so a small yay for unexpected discoveries.

There was also some more conventional street art on walls as we got closer to the port and some artistic flair to the otherwise seemingly-abandoned miniature golf course we passed by.

Now, that walk back to Sky Princess at the cruise terminal took us two hours, but before you raise a hand to your forehead and collapse in a faint worthy of the best period dramas let me point out that we did find another small place that was open on the route to have a drink in and that accounted for a decent chunk of minutes in that duration. To be fair, it hadn’t been our intention to have a drink – our priority was finding a toilet because of the drinks we’d already had in Skaal making their way through our bodies – but it served to break up the walk and dilute the strong emotions towards our cruise line, and we had plenty of time to play with. That place, incidentally, was Tio Mario’s, and we extend our thanks to them for being there just when we needed them.

Back on board Sky Princess, then, and after a long day exploring Copenhagen on foot, both planned and unplanned, dinner and cocktails felt oh so good, so here, enjoy this feast of photos of both of them.

Sky Princess had a late departure from Copenhagen but there was still some lovely light on the horizon when we did so. They’re the sorts of views to almost make you forgive a cruise company for giving you a minor panic attack in a foreign country. Almost.

Okay. So, not the best ending to a day in Copenhagen with Princess Cruises, but overall we enjoyed it and had some interesting experiences, and isn’t that what life and travelling is all about?

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series we’ll be making a stop at Denmark’s northernmost town, Skagen, and it’s an absolute gem of a place that we’ll explore a little (and drink in a little) after a war-related tour that starts at the Coastal Museum of Bangsbo.

We had anticipated having to pay for the shuttle bus from the cruise port to the city centre. If you’ve read our experiences in Copenhagen from earlier in the year when we’d cruised to Denmark on Sky Princess then you might know that we got caught out by an odd shuttle bus arrangement that meant we were not allowed to use it one way because we’d taken a tour so ended up walking a considerable distance to get back to the ship at its conclusion (see: Copenhagen Walking Tour, Part Three: Street Art Between Skaal And The Cruise Terminal). This time we decided we’d pay for the tickets both way. Only this time the shuttle bus was free. No idea why it was different a few months apart on cruises operated by the same company. Still, at least it’s nice to know that there’s no consistent answer for whether or not you can get a complimentary ride to Copenhagen from a cruise ship or not, so that’s something.

In 2022 I can state that the location where the shuttle buses dropped cruise passengers off was right beside St Peter’s Church, but there’s no guarantee that this fact of the time holds true now.

St Peter’s is not just the oldest church but the oldest building in the main area of Copenhagen. Old buildings in nations with their fair share of warlike people or warlike neighbours or clumsy oafs have a tendency to burn down and it’s no surprise that the original church has done just that and been rebuilt more than once, but the history of the church goes as far back as the eleventh century. Most of the architecture that the church currently displays, though, can be traced back to the fifteenth century.

Across the road from where we were dropped off was another church: the Church of Our Lady. The present building dates from the middle of the nineteenth century as its predecessor was destroyed in the Second Battle of Copenhagen by British forces. The previous medieval design was given a neoclassical makeover complete with six-columned portico but lacked a tower originally (because towers didn’t fit the architectural style) until locals demanded one be added. A simplistic square form tower is the result. To the left and right of the main entrance to the church were statues of David By Jens Adolf Jerichau and Moses by Herman Wilhelm Bissen.

About a minute’s walk brought us to Gammeltorv, the oldest public square in Copenhagen, which housed the Caritas Fountain (or Caritas Well), the oldest fountain. That’s a lot of oldest things all in very close proximity. The fountain was built in 1608. On the monarch’s birthday (that’s changed since we visited) and a few other occasions each year copper balls covered in gold to symbolise apples are placed in the water of the fountain to jump under the streams; a tradition dating back to the eighteenth century. It was before television was invented and people were starved of entertainment. Don’t judge.

We headed through the streets of Copenhagen towards the City Hall Square.

We spent a few minutes admiring the architecture of the area around the City Hall and some of its odd sculptures, but didn’t go in the building itself. It apparently houses an impressive World Clock that with the benefit of hindsight might have been nice to look at, but we didn’t actually know that at the time. The main building is very early twentieth century, taking over the functions of a smaller building elsewhere in the city that been used prior to that.

If you like red brick buildings with tall towers then this is the square to come and see them, although it’s interesting to note the somewhat subtle differences in the architectural styles employed. The nearby Scandic Palace Hotel, for instance, built only a few years after the City Hall, has a few more curved surfaces and ornate ironwork than its neighbour, borrowing from the Art Nouveau movement.

We liked the bizarre bronze statues in the square that were apparently supposed to be dragons. Often when you see a painting or sculpture of an animal that looks nothing like it you can say with some authority “Ah, clearly made by someone who’s never seen one before” but when it comes to dragons you’ve got to give the artist a bit of leeway. Anyway, dragons with snouts that can blow water and extinguish the flames of dragons that breathe fire makes a sort of sense if you think about it.

Our short walk in Copenhagen took us along a little bit of Hans Christian Andersen’s Boulevard where, in addition to seeing one of the two statues of the author in the city (the other one is in the King’s Garden and we’d seen that earlier in the year on our walking tour of Copenhagen) we got good views of the entrance to Tivoli. Despite this being our third visit to Copenhagen we’ve still not visited its famous amusement park and gardens, mostly because we don’t think that the short trips to Denmark’s capital city so far would have done justice to the amount of time we’d like to spend inside this place. It’s in the back of our minds to take a city break to Copenhagen one weekend and perhaps give this location a proper look around then, but for now we simply walked on past. Also, it was closed at the time.

A very short walk from here brought us to a location around which there were three museums close to one another: a fine art museum, the national museum of Denmark, and the one we chose to visit on this occasion, the smallest of the three, the Museum of Copenhagen. This was a museum dedicated to the city with a look at its history and geography as you’d expect, but also hitting everyday life elements such as manhole covers or, my favourite, equipment and pictures by the street photographers who used to take and process photos of tourists on film with chemicals within their all-in-one camera and lab equipment. This was truly engrossing for me, although I suspect it’s niche enough that it won’t appeal to everyone. But we like different. Different is good.

We had an enjoyable time at the museum but had now reached the point for us to do the only thing we’d actually planned on doing during our free time in Copenhagen. This took us back to the City Hall Square, heading down a street just before we reached the Lur Blowers statue, a gift to the city from the Carlsberg Foundation.

The place we wanted to spend some time in was the Taphouse and if you know us and our love of craft ales, and if you know that Taphouse has 61 beer taps behind the bar then you’ll understand why we wanted to pay a visit to this place. Friendly staff and a great range of beers – but also spirits, wine, soft drinks, snacks, and free Wi-Fi if you’re looking for a good place to watch the world go by in Copenhagen – but the thing we liked most was the lights flashing red whenever a new ale was on tap. What can I say? We’re simple people who like simple things.

Taphouse catered for a lot of beer tastes, but we are fond of dark ales so we gave their flights a try, and if you’re interested in seeing the range of alcohol percentages and countries of origin then we’ve been awfully nice and shared print-outs of those too.

We spent a lovely couple of hours sipping drinks but then started on the walk back to where the shuttle bus would be. We don’t like to leave it until the last shuttle bus or tender boat when we’re ashore just in case there are queues, and it would have been all too easy to grab some more drinks and lose track of the time altogether.

On the walk we spotted a couple either posing for photos after marrying or posing for photos for a wedding or bridal photographer. We’ve seen quite a few wedding shoots over the years when we’ve travelled to places.

The last thing I paused to take photos of in Copenhagen was the Reformation Memorial, an obelisk commemorating four hundred years of the switch from Catholicism to the Lutheran faith, unveiled in 1943. On each face of its base were bronze reliefs depicting events of 1536 and 1537 when King Christian III confirmed the Reformation of Denmark.

A hundred metres further along the road was the shuttle bus waiting to take us back to the ship.

In the next post in this cruise travelogue series I’ll be posting photos of Sweden from Island Princess as we left Denmark and cruised between both countries on the way to the next port of Oslo, Norway.

We’d just had a lovely half day in the Danish capital and by the time we got back to the ship following our morning and afternoon of walking, exploring, and drinking in Copenhagen we were a smidge tipsy. Those beers may have been small but they packed a punch. Our immediate thoughts were that it made sense to have something to absorb some of the alcohol without filling us up too much, and since it was pleasant right at that point – it had been changeable all day in Denmark – we headed to the top deck of Island Princess for something from the lido grill.

From here on it was all about just relaxing in our room for a few hours, getting some drinks delivered (you don’t stop drinking once you start in the afternoon or you get a headache; that’s a scientific fact!), having a bit of a read, and waiting for, then stepping outside occasionally for, the sail away from Denmark northwards along the coast of Sweden towards our next port of call on this cruise.

I do like a nice wind farm, but who doesn’t? Gits who put profits before the planet’s future, that’s who. And people whose parents were abducted by wind farms when they were children, instilling a deep fear of the thrum of turbines ever since and a longing that won’t go away. I can excuse the latter group.

That changeable weather was on show with clouds bubbling up and hiding the sun on occasion, sometimes showering us for a minute or so, then passing quickly. Our balcony was on the starboard side of the ship which meant the sun was on the other side of the vessel, so when it started to rain in Sweden we saw evidence of it from our cabin in the form of a rainbow over the distant land. Thanks, physics!

As we cruised further north, so the sun sank in the west, and that brought a range of fantastic colours in the sky and clouds, even casting everything in shades of light purple at points. Light reflected from water at different wavelengths to produce rainbows, then light refracted through more of the atmosphere to change its wavelength all in the space of half an hour! What a treat! It was fantastic to watch Sweden passing by with completely different light from minute to minute.

To some people they’re eyesores but I do love the look of industrialisation. All those chimneys and warehouses, the silos and conveyor belts, the steam, the cranes. That’s what growing up on a steady diet of post-apocalyptic movies in the 1980s will do for you. Somewhere over there, I thought, there’s a gang of survivors barricaded while a biker gang looks to break in and commit horrible acts of violence on them, and maybe I’m the hero who arrives on a shiny, white ship to lead everyone to safety.

Again, we’d been drinking.

The narrowest point of the waterway between Denmark and Sweden was at the northernmost end so this is where we got closest to land. This was Helsingborg in Sweden, and if we’d been inclined to head up onto the top deck and gaze across in the other direction we’d have seen Helsingør in Denmark, and, more specifically, Castle Kronborg, that we’d visited on our first visit to Denmark a few years earlier. Clearly, as the photos will show, we weren’t so inclined.

For the rest of the evening it was the usual fare for us in the form of showers, changing, a little bit more drinking and entertainment, then dinner.

In the next travelogue in this Island Princess series of posts we’ll be making our second visit to Norway’s capital city in four months when we visit Oslo. We’ll also be taking the only excursion we booked at all on this cruise, which starts with a glass blowing demonstration that isn’t what we expected at all.