A tale of three cities: two of which I can't pronounce the names of

June 28th – This inevitably happens on our long cruises, and it just so happens to come into effect on our day in Copenhagen: I’ve had enough. I’m saturated with culture and I’ve gorged myself on every kind of good food I can imagine. When this happens, I still try to enjoy the trip, but given the choice between another day of Scandinavian churches or eating Mini-Wheats at home in my underpants, I’d totally go for option B.

On shore, our first stop is at the Little Mermaid statue, a tribute to the story by Hans Christian Andersen (which isn’t quite the happy tale that Disney spun it into). The statue itself is overrated, and not even impressive from an artistic standpoint. Even the locals are ambivalent about it, as in recent years they’ve cut her arms off twice and decapitated her once.

From there we hike up to the city centre, an ‘octagonal square’ as our port lecturer described it. It’s the site of the Royal Palace and it has armed guards stationed at all corners. The ‘square’ itself is open to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic, but there’s no marking to show what goes where. To keep out of the way, we climb over a small barrier that surrounds a giant, fenced-in statue of some long dead royal on horseback; shortly thereafter, we hear someone bellowing in Danish. It’s one of the guards, and he punctuates his shouts by slamming the butt of his rifle into the ground. We all assume he’s yelling at other tourists, shouting the Danish equivalent of “please step behind the barrier like those other smart folks so you’re away from the traffic.” Fortunately, before we get pistol whipped we realize that we’re not supposed to be behind the barrier, or anywhere near their precious statue. It’s probably our biggest dumb tourist moment of the trip.

We follow this with a canal tour. I discover if there’s one thing that I am over, its canal tours. I bitch about this to Sarah, but I think in a good-natured way. [Yeah…not so much. –S.] We do see a few very cool buildings, like the stock exchange, and the new addition built onto the National Library that’s dubbed the Black Diamond. Off the boat, we endure a very long walk through incredibly crowded streets to find a place called The Sweater Market. The shopping guy on the ship promoted it as a great place for deals, but it turns out to sell granny sweaters almost exclusively. They do at least offer free internet access to customers, so the trip isn’t a total loss.

As opposed to most nights where we typically leave port around 6pm, we’re scheduled to be in Copenhagen until five in the morning (because it’s only a few short hours to our next stop). So that evening, we take a bus to Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli is a theme park—something between the CNE and Canada’s Wonderland. The highlight ride is a giant swing (think “Swings of Siam” at Wonderland) that rises ninety feet in the air, and Sarah and I would totally have ridden it if it wasn’t thirty dollars a pop. Instead, we walk around looking at the carnie games, and stop for a drink where I discover the ambrosia that is Carlsberg Dark. I proclaim that we can’t leave until we play at least one carnie game, so we choose Wack-A-Mole. Despite my lightening-quick reflexes, Sarah kicks my ever-loving ass.

June 29th – I’m in a much better mood today. Maybe I caught up on sleep, or maybe I was just dehydrated before, but whatever the reason, for a port that promised less than the day before I was happier to see it overall.

We dock in Helsingborg, our second stop in Sweden. It’s the only port that we have to tender into, which is where the ships drops anchor and we’re taken to shore in smaller boats (because our ship is too tubby to squeeze in close to land). It’s a very choppy ride, but Sarah’s mom doesn’t get even a little sick. I want to say something about the city, but it’s getting very difficult to distinguish one Scandinavian city from the next.

There’s a short ferry ride that travels over to Helsingor, Denmark, which we’d planned to see, so we head for that first and plan to finish up back Sweden side. The ferry is huge, complete with a bar, cafeteria, arcade, and some slots. The crossing is rock steady, and twenty minutes later we’re in Helsingor. We beeline it to Kronborg Castle, which is also referred to as Elsinore, and if that sounds familiar it’s because that’s where Hamlet was set. Shakespeare likely never visited it, and the castle that stands in that spot today is not the castle that stood on the same spot in Shakespeare’s day, but all the same: Hamlet! W00T! Once there though, travel fatigue has claimed the lot of us, so rather than tour we decide just to walk the grounds. There’s display boards all around that describe the history of the castle, and we only sort of pay attention to these (just enough to discover that Reay Jespersen is actually a deposed Duke and the rightful heir to Elsinore Castle—so at least we learned that.)

I’ve gone on at length about those crazy teetotalling Scandinavians, but it's here we discover that Denmark is the least stringent of the bunch (or at least the most favourable from a price perspective). Helsingor turns out to be Tijuana on the Baltic. As we walk the downtown core, there are hundreds of folks with suitcases marching through the streets. At first I assumed they’re just a lot of tourists trying to find their hotel, but it turns out they’re Swedes who routinely take the ferry over to Helisingor/TJ to buy gallons upon gallons of sweet contraband booze. (The best kind of booze, really.)

On the ferry back to Helsingborg, we decide to have a quick semi-lunch—so really, just a pile of snacks—at the cafeteria. I grab a beer (the awesomely named Elephant King), and the Swedish equivalent of a Mars bar. There’s a tray filled with shots of Jagermeister, but as I’m in the middle of a vacation with the in-laws and not in the middle of the woods with my boozehound friends, I pass it by. But Sarah likes the packaging (it comes with a pop-on, Jag-emblazoned lid) and insists I have one. I look over my meal—a beer, a chocolate bar, and a shot of Jag—and proclaim: “This is the best lunch ever.”