Copenhagen Denmark

First impression: Bikes, bikes, bikes, really, I mean bikes everywhere!!! The sheer vista of bikes literally everywhere is amazing.

Copenhagen is widely famed as one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. The locals cycle around 1.44 million kilometers every day, with 63% of the population riding their bike to work. The city has created a cycling oasis. There are 390 kilometers of designated bike lanes and hundreds of kilometers of regional cycle highways. There are also plenty of amenities such as air pumps and timed traffic lights, making biking a major method of worry-free transportation.

Our host has a nice agreement with the bike store here in our building for discounted bike rentals. We rent bikes for the week at about the daily rental rate in San Francisco.  With bikes it is easy to traverse good distances around the city in a short amount of time. We realize with bikes, it is easy to get a long way from “home” while adventuring.

There are pedestrian walkways, separate from the bike paths, separate from the cars. It is an intricate network of transportation movement that appears to work very well. The cars respect the bikes, the bikes respect the pedestrians. I can’t tell you how many times in Santa Cruz we have encountered a near miss by a car turning right or left into our bike path. It is truly scary. Here, I had to get use to it being ok to ride in front of a turning car that patiently waits for the passing bikes. The bike path has its own separate streetlights and directional arrows protecting the pedestrians.

We encounter a group of preschools in training. It is so cute, they have a small obstacle course set up to learn to maneuver their bikes.  

We investigate the gardens and find the infamous food markets.

We visit Tivoli Gardens in the evening, an amusement park with entertainment, beautifully groomed gardens, and spectacular illuminated buildings.

One of the “must see” places in Copenhagen is Christiania. A former military complex that was taken over in the 70’s by hippie anarchists with the goal of creating, as such, a sovereign nation, mainly free of any regulations on drug use.

It was a bit creepy, what you might expect of a group of stoners with big ideas and none of the energy or motivation to complete any tasks; partial art projects, in progress construction, mostly a bunch of people sitting around getting stoned.

Hashish continues to be freely sold on the street here in Christiania. This section of the “city” is clearly and formidably marked with “NO PICTURES” signs. However, I just had to get a picture, from a distance. Guys standing about with upside down green plastic milk crates selling hashish.  My pictures aren’t great, but I did manage to snap a couple before one of the “lookouts” a guy in a white T-shirt and ugly jeans, comes up to me, saying only “no, …. “no” then he says “see”, pointing to my camera. He wants to see what pictures I might have taken. I have a small digital camera. He clearly didn’t speak English, or, in fact, any language, and was completely non communicative. Only pointing, and muttering “see”. He had no idea what to make of my real camera. I just showed him my blank camera screen and he finally went away. Gary was a bit worried they might drag me off somewhere into the bowels of this dumpy place.

Always up for an adventure!