We left home at 7.15, bound for Heathrow. Mark from Whitecar met us at the departure drop off, and we handed the Tesla off smoothly to him and went inside. Priority security was fairly quick and painless.
The BA lounge was rammed and annoying, however, with uninspiring food. We had two Americans sitting beside us, and the woman turned to me with no preamble whatsoever and asked whether porridge was made of oats. Um, yes. . .
Our seats on the plane were the last of the Club Europe section, and were extremely comfortable. The best part was that there was no one behind us so I could recline my seat all the way. We had quite a nice breakfast here (much better than the lounge). The flight took off as scheduled at 9.55 and arrived mostly on time at 12.55. We had no checked-in luggage so went straight through the small airport. There seemed to be a lot of Thai Airways planes.
We bought ourselves 72-hour travel tickets for 200 DKK each, which would cover all trains, buses and trams, then jumped in a taxi (because the journey from the airport to the boat was the only one that was difficult via public transport). The driver couldn't read the directions in Danish on my phone, even with his glasses, so he went off his own (thankfully reliable) GPS, which took us over a raised kerb onto a very curious road that was essentially a bike track, to the harbour. We thanked him and got out. The fare was about 160 DKK.
We walked around the harbour for some time, looking for the red boat next to a yellow boat, as per Birgit's instruction on AirBNB. After having gone the wrong way around the harbour, which involved going up onto the major road and back down again, we found it. The key was easy to find, and then we were in.
The boat was huge. Very nicely decorated and every comfort had been provided. The one offputting thing is that the lean, which I had expected, was actually port-to-starboard instead of bow-to-stern. Never mind. The harbour neighbourhood was quirky and alternative. I liked it.
By now it was nearly 1.30 (I had miscalculated our arrival time due to different time zones) and we had to go out in search of lunch. I'd briefly looked at a map of how to find the water bus stop, but hadn't looked closely enough. Christian took us there in the end (it was further away than I'd thought).
The water bus was a strange, yellow, almost military looking vessel - very slow, but very relaxing. We were treated to lovely views as we went towards the city, and some really interesting buildings. I'd planned an itinerary, but I hadn't allowed for Christian being dangerously hungry.
We got off at Nyhavn, which I'd planned to explore before crossing the river back to Paper Island, but there was nothing quick to eat or drink. So we strode around to the other side of Nyhavn, and over the river. Christian finally found a drink on the way.
Seems that everyone else was headed for Paper Island (Papirøen) too. I had read that it was a reclaimed paper warehouse, and was temporarily being used as a street food venue - which had been ridiculously successful. Christian had smørrebrød, which I didn't recognise at the time and wasn't tempted by. I had pulled duck and chips from a place called Duck It!, which was very fatty but absolutely delicious. We contemplated dessert, but decided against it, despite there being very tasty looking cheesecake and some chocolate log things that I liked the look of.
We decided against going into Freetown/Christiania, and went back into Nyhavn again - stopping for ice cream. It was very pretty and we saw an amazing art installation featuring the lifejackets of refugees. From there, we walked to Kongens Nytorv station and took the metro one stop to Nørreport. It wasn't obvious which train to get on. We got on a silver one that was clearly full of commuters, and stood up in the middle of a carriage. Christian noted after a while that Google maps thought we were already past Hellerup. Bugger. We got off at the next stop, which was Rungsted Kyst - well beyond Hellerup. Oops. Good thing we'd allowed ourselves plenty of time. We bought tickets at Rungsted Kyst and waited for the next train back. Christian worked out that the letter code attached to each train told you what the stops were.
So we got a (non-silver) train back to Hellerup and did the short walk to Casey's address. We weren't quite sure where to go, but luckily Rahul found us walking around and took us straight to the beautiful and interesting house. Casey gave us the tour and we had a drink and chatted to Rahul and Bella while Casey finished off the dinner.
Reg came home, and we sat down to an amazing curry dinner. Really nice. Christian and Reg found plenty to talk about in the world of business and cloud, and Casey shared some of challenges of living in Copenhagen. We didn't want to be out too late so we headed off at about 9.45. Christian had failed to bring a jacket, and by some stroke of luck, Casey and Reg had a spare left by a housesitter, which he took.
We got off the train at Nørrebro, and bought milk, and croissants for breakfast. Then transferred to a bus to the harbour. Then sleep, around 11pm.
The BA lounge was rammed and annoying, however, with uninspiring food. We had two Americans sitting beside us, and the woman turned to me with no preamble whatsoever and asked whether porridge was made of oats. Um, yes. . .
Our seats on the plane were the last of the Club Europe section, and were extremely comfortable. The best part was that there was no one behind us so I could recline my seat all the way. We had quite a nice breakfast here (much better than the lounge). The flight took off as scheduled at 9.55 and arrived mostly on time at 12.55. We had no checked-in luggage so went straight through the small airport. There seemed to be a lot of Thai Airways planes.
We bought ourselves 72-hour travel tickets for 200 DKK each, which would cover all trains, buses and trams, then jumped in a taxi (because the journey from the airport to the boat was the only one that was difficult via public transport). The driver couldn't read the directions in Danish on my phone, even with his glasses, so he went off his own (thankfully reliable) GPS, which took us over a raised kerb onto a very curious road that was essentially a bike track, to the harbour. We thanked him and got out. The fare was about 160 DKK.
We walked around the harbour for some time, looking for the red boat next to a yellow boat, as per Birgit's instruction on AirBNB. After having gone the wrong way around the harbour, which involved going up onto the major road and back down again, we found it. The key was easy to find, and then we were in.
The boat was huge. Very nicely decorated and every comfort had been provided. The one offputting thing is that the lean, which I had expected, was actually port-to-starboard instead of bow-to-stern. Never mind. The harbour neighbourhood was quirky and alternative. I liked it.
By now it was nearly 1.30 (I had miscalculated our arrival time due to different time zones) and we had to go out in search of lunch. I'd briefly looked at a map of how to find the water bus stop, but hadn't looked closely enough. Christian took us there in the end (it was further away than I'd thought).
The water bus was a strange, yellow, almost military looking vessel - very slow, but very relaxing. We were treated to lovely views as we went towards the city, and some really interesting buildings. I'd planned an itinerary, but I hadn't allowed for Christian being dangerously hungry.
We got off at Nyhavn, which I'd planned to explore before crossing the river back to Paper Island, but there was nothing quick to eat or drink. So we strode around to the other side of Nyhavn, and over the river. Christian finally found a drink on the way.
Seems that everyone else was headed for Paper Island (Papirøen) too. I had read that it was a reclaimed paper warehouse, and was temporarily being used as a street food venue - which had been ridiculously successful. Christian had smørrebrød, which I didn't recognise at the time and wasn't tempted by. I had pulled duck and chips from a place called Duck It!, which was very fatty but absolutely delicious. We contemplated dessert, but decided against it, despite there being very tasty looking cheesecake and some chocolate log things that I liked the look of.
We decided against going into Freetown/Christiania, and went back into Nyhavn again - stopping for ice cream. It was very pretty and we saw an amazing art installation featuring the lifejackets of refugees. From there, we walked to Kongens Nytorv station and took the metro one stop to Nørreport. It wasn't obvious which train to get on. We got on a silver one that was clearly full of commuters, and stood up in the middle of a carriage. Christian noted after a while that Google maps thought we were already past Hellerup. Bugger. We got off at the next stop, which was Rungsted Kyst - well beyond Hellerup. Oops. Good thing we'd allowed ourselves plenty of time. We bought tickets at Rungsted Kyst and waited for the next train back. Christian worked out that the letter code attached to each train told you what the stops were.
So we got a (non-silver) train back to Hellerup and did the short walk to Casey's address. We weren't quite sure where to go, but luckily Rahul found us walking around and took us straight to the beautiful and interesting house. Casey gave us the tour and we had a drink and chatted to Rahul and Bella while Casey finished off the dinner.
Reg came home, and we sat down to an amazing curry dinner. Really nice. Christian and Reg found plenty to talk about in the world of business and cloud, and Casey shared some of challenges of living in Copenhagen. We didn't want to be out too late so we headed off at about 9.45. Christian had failed to bring a jacket, and by some stroke of luck, Casey and Reg had a spare left by a housesitter, which he took.
We got off the train at Nørrebro, and bought milk, and croissants for breakfast. Then transferred to a bus to the harbour. Then sleep, around 11pm.
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