In the summer of 1971, between my freshmen and sophomore years of college, three friends of mine and I took the summer to make a looping trip through the countries of western Europe. I was attending the University of Maryland, Munich Campus at the time, which was central to our trip, and the starting and endpoint of it.
One of the first cities we visited was Copenhagen, Denmark. To this day, I still feel this is one of the nicest cities I’ve ever visited, and Denmark itself refers to Copenhagen as “Europe’s Friendliest City.”
Given the opportunity to take some vacation travel time, I chose to re-visit Copenhagen, and see how it had changed in the 45 years since my last visit.
The wonderful thing about European cities is that the new never replaces the old; it adds to it, enhances it, and sometimes alters it, but centuries-old culture and tradition do not go by the wayside.
As has been my wont for the past few years, taking photographs is a driving force to my travel-planning decisions. So, I packed my (recently repaired) Nikon and its assorted lenses and off I went.
Walking from the central train station to my hotel (a walk of about two city blocks), my first sight of the hotel nearly filled me with dismay: McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Hard Rock Cafe and 7-Eleven were all situated next to the place I was going to call home for the next week.
However, my dismay was quickly dismissed, as I soon found out the hotel was 100% Danish, and that I was under no obligation to eat, or even look at, the Americana that abounded.
The week was spent walking and riding (a bicycle as well as buses) around the city. The original weather forecast called for cloudy, rainy weather, but I was delighted that the entire week was partly sunny with temperatures in the mid-60s. Perfect weather for sightseeing and photographing!
Herewith are some of the photos. Of course, no trip to Copenhagen is complete without a visit to the famour Little Mermaid statue, so that’s up first.
Other scenes are noteworthy: Tivoli Gardens, Rosenborg Castle, Christianborg Castle, Christiania, Nyhaven, and more.
As I go through my photos, I may upload more. This is just a teaser: Copenhagen today is every bit a nice and friendly as it was 45 years ago!