It was a damp but sunny morning as we set off on our road trip through Scandinavia. Our first stop would be Copenhagen, an 8 hour drive away.
We got into Copenhagen a little later than expected and were a little rushed trying to see all of the sights that we hoped to get to. Fortunately the sun would set rather late, around 8 o'clock, and that gave us the extra time that we needed, but left us eating dinner much later than we had hoped.
One of the first thing that we noticed around the city was the depth to which American culture had forced itself onto Copenhagen's shopping district. On the far side of the City Hall's square was a building that prominently held a Burger King, a KFC, crowning the top of the building was a McDonald's billboard, and across the narrow street from it was a 7-11. Forgive my crassness, but it really looked as though American economic imperialism had wiped its ass with Copenhagen's historic buildings. It was more than a little embarrassing.
Overall though, the rest of Copenhagen was a really lovely city, and it's historic landmarks were nothing short of amazing. Strangely though, the city had a curious mix of ancient and modern that was hard to put my finger on but aside from the landmarks, it seemed to have had much of the historic feel diluted out of it. It was very much a feeling that I got when exploring Montreal.
After a bit of a whirlwind tour of the city we sat down to eat a delicious dinner, accompanied by a couple of the local favorite beer, a Tuborg, down at the picturesque canal district called the Nyhavn. Where tall sailboats were secured along the edges of the canal, and local street musicians played as we ate.
It was an ideal end to the day. We had a nice evening stroll back to the hotel and got ready for the next leg of our road trip to Stockholm, Sweden.
No comments:
Post a Comment