We landed bright and early at Copenhagen's airport, and caught the metro into town. I learnt on this trip that Kristina has a thing for tunnels (as long as they're illuminated that is, which I'll talk more about later when we get to the fjords). We both immediately noticed there wasn't a single piece of graffiti in the metro tunnels, compared to those of Paris which are inundated with it!

The first thing that hits you about Copenhagen, much like Amsterdam, is the vast numbers of bicycles everywhere. Its people population is about 1.9 million in the metropolitan area, whereas its bicycle population is about 2.5 million hehe. There are dedicated cycles lanes and paths everywhere - my kind of place!

With that many bikes in the city, finding somewhere to lock your beast can be an issue, so pretty much anywhere will do hehe.

This is what happens when you drink and ride ;)

So Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, which itself has a population of 5.5 million and God knows how many bikes. I'm standing on a bridge here which holds the world record for the highest number bicycle crossings per day on average - around 750,000. Apparently 36% of Copenhagen's citizens commute to work by bicycle, and every day they clock up a combined 1.2 million kilometres! Copenhagen has repeatedly been recognized as one of the cities with the best quality of life. Everyone pisses and moans about the high rates of tax (bearing in mind Denmark is a welfare state) but they still love the place. It is also considered one of the world's most environmentally friendly cities, and the water in the inner harbour is so clean that you can swim in it (though you'd come out freezing your ass off and wishing you hadn't).

The famous Danish children's author Hans Christian Anderson lived in Copenhagen for much of his life, and though he died in 1875 (from falling out of bed) he is still revered by the locals.

We set up camp at our first hostel of the trip (this isn't it hehe) and ventured out to see what the 10th most expensive city in the world had to offer. First up: Tivoli Gardens, a famous amusement park right in the middle of the city apparently best known for its wooden rollercoaster dating back to 1914 - one of the oldest still in operation. Tivoli itself opened in 1843, making it the second oldest amusement park in the world (first place goes to another Copenhagen amusement park in the north of the city - these Danish sure like amusement). Despite it being one of the most visited theme parks in Europe, we didn't go in (I shot this through the fence) - not for lack of want though, more for lack of time. Having said that, Kristina made no secret of her reluctance to ride something like that on the right hahaha! This is Himmelskibet, for now the world's tallest carousel at 80 metres.

There's no shortage of green spaces in any of the cities we visited. Good spots to just be yourself (whatever that might be).

I swear these Peruvian pipe bands are following me - they're absolutely everywhere! Even South Park did an episode on them hehe.

Right in the heart of the city is an area known as Strøget, which consists of several connected pedestrianised streets and is supposedly the longest pedestrian shopping area in Europe (ladies take note, and men beware).

Always plenty going on in Strøget.

These two, cute though they are, are a real minority in Scandinavia (at least in Denmark and Norway). Compared to many other big European cities, we saw very few homeless folk here. I'm guessing the reason for that is down to the welfare state thing, whereby the government pays for everything and takes responsibility for those unable to avail themselves of the minimal provisions for a good life.

This is Robert Wadlow - the tallest person in history reaching 8ft 11in (2.72m) and weighing 485 lb (220 kg). He was born in Illinois in 1918, and died in Michigan in 1940 at the age of just 22. He had a condition of the pituitary gland which results in high levels of human growth hormone, and showed no indication of an end to his growth even at the time of his death. He wasn't very big down there though ;)

Nyhavn - the cliché Copenhagen sight, and an awesome spot to eat, drink, and relax along the canal on a sunny day! Nyhvan is lined by brightly-coloured 17th- and early-18th-century townhouses, bars, cafes and restaurants, all of them fucking expensive. Hans Christian Anderson, the children's author I mentioned earlier, lived along Nyhavn for many years.

Day 2, and cycle tour time!

I'd love to say this was our tour guide, but he wasn't hehe.

Instead, this guy was. This is Mike (or the back of Mike) of Bike Copenhagen With Mike. Mike is a Copenhagen local who runs his tours during the northern summer. During the northern winter though he heads to New Zealand for our summer and does cycle tours in Auckland. Good man :)

We started along The Lakes, a row of 3 rectangular lakes curving around the western border of the city centre.

Crossing Nyhavn Canal.

In every cycle tour I've done (and I've done a lot), the guide goes fairly slowly and ensures everyone is sticking together and keeping up ok. Not Mike though, here he is some 100 yards up the road hahaha! We'd stop at a sight, he'd talk for a bit, zoom off, and leave it to everyone to catch up in their own time hehe. I much preferred this style ;)

One of Copenhagen's most famous icons and sights, The Little Mermaid statue sits on a rock in Copenhagen's harbour. It's based on a tale by Hans Christian Anderson, is small, and I have no idea why it's so famous but there you go.

Further along from the dejected-looking mermaid is Kastellet, a pentagram-shaped citadel which is one of the best-preserved fortifications in Northern Europe. Construction started in 1626 and was completed some 40 years later. During the German invasion of Denmark in 1940 during World War II, German troops landing at the nearby harbour captured the citadel thereby forcing the Danish government to surrender. The bastards! Though still an active military area, it is also today a public park.

From there we cycled to Christianshavn, and artificial island district in the east of the city centre. It was once an independent city until it was swallowed by the rapidly expanding Copenhagen. It was founded in the early 17th century by King Christian IV as part of his ambitious program to fortify Copenhagen (a program which also included Kastellet as just mentioned) and an attempt to boost Danish sea trade.

This is quite an interesting spot with an equally interesting modern-day story. Within Christianshavn is the offbeat community of Christiania. In 1971 after the military moved out of the area, many young and homeless people moved in without the city's permission, proclaiming Christiania a "free city" (i.e. partially exempt from the rules and regulations of the Danish government). This pissed a lot of people off but Christiania has been a freewheeling and controversial place ever since. There are craft shops and restaurants here that are far cheaper than the rest of Copenhagen because its 850 residents refuse to pay Denmark's 25% sales tax hahaha! The centre shot above is a little underwhelming, but that's because photography is banned in most of the area due to an ongoing drug trade. Since its 'founding' in 1971, Christiania has been famous for its open cannabis trade to which the authorities have turned something of a blind eye. For years now the legal status of the region has been in limbo due to different Danish governments attempting to remove the Christianites, of which all attempts have been unsuccessful so far hehe. I could go on and on about this place - it really is fascinating but I suggest you refer to the likes of Wikipedia instead.

Amalienborg Palace, the Royal residence consisting of four identical classical mansions facing an octagonal courtyard.

I'm not sure what these buildings are exactly but this is on Slotsholmen, an artificial island which is home to a cluster of museums and parliament buildings.

Open to interpretation this one ;)

After Mike's highly educational cycle tour we found this awesome little spot in Strøget (the pedestrianised area I mentioned earlier) for some traditional Danish lunch of bits and pieces.

That evening we wandered back to Nyhavn for a second time but, given how expense this spot is as we discovered the night before, we raided a supermarket around the corner for booze instead (much, much cheaper!) and Kristina received a sign from the beer gods hehe. We then sat along the side of the canal with all the other cheapskates and drunk it there.

Scandinavia encourages recycling of used cans and bottles etc. by exchanging them for money at most supermarkets. You therefore see a lot of these folk along Nyhavn collecting everybody's empty beer cans.

Day 3, and today we decided to get out of Copenhagen and venture north on one of their colourful metro trains.

This is the neighbourhood of Sorgenfri about 15kms north of Copenhagen, where the locals not only have to sweep and rake their gardens but their roofs too apparently.

The main attraction around here is this bloody big lake and surrounding forest, but we found something more entertaining...

While wandering through the forest we found a lot of people kayaking and canoeing along this channel and adjacent lake, so we thought we'd have a go and hired one ourselves - nice!

Nice day for it! Kristina had her Flip Cam for this trip and so we took several videos of our antics. Here's one of us on the water.

I've always thought it would be really hard to accidentally roll one of these things over but this chick somehow managed to do it, and neither she nor her mate there were happy about my taking photos of it all - double evils hehe.

We hired the canoe for three hours, went up and down the channel, passed some expensive lake-side properties, Kristina had a staring contest with a swan, I soaked up some rays, and Kristina sat back and ate chips while I did all the work.

We hung around the area that evening for dinner before heading back to Copenhagen. And that was that. So Copenhagen in a nutshell is a brilliant little destination, and it's a shame we didn't have more time to venture further into Denmark as a whole. There's plenty of crap to keep a tourist entertained both in and around the city, and it has a real Amsterdam feel to it with the cycling and architecture and the drug trade in Christiania (albeit not as legal here). Something else I noticed was their respect for the red man at the traffic lights. We saw very few people try to cross the road on a red man anywhere on this whole trip, which is in stark contrast to the likes of London and Paris where pricks do that all the time and without looking, and I hit them on my bike :)