Copenhagen 1
Our decision to schedule travel during the summer rush was necessitated by Jan’s City Council meeting schedule. We made the conservative choice of Europe again because of our ages and shared youthful reverence for its high culture: literature, philosophy, music, art, architecture. We picked Scandinavia to avoid the heatwaves and fires feared for the south and because I’d never been there, though Jan had visited briefly during her junior year abroad. Our one personal connection was a long lost college roommate of hers whom she managed to arrange meeting for coffee one afternoon in Stockholm. We selected a tour format at the late date we reserved that would choose destinations, handle transport arrangements, book accommodations, and provide only a single half-day local tour in each country. And we arranged for two days before and after the tour to make our own way.
The trip began on a disastrous note. The day before departure, when I tried to check-in to our flight purchased in May on Expedia for Copenhagen on United from SLO via San Francisco to Munich and then via United’s “partner” Lufthansa, I was informed by a United agent that Lufthansa rejected the reservation because my first and last names had been reversed and could not be corrected at this late date. In order to carry through, we would have to lose our seats on the second leg and purchase new tickets from Munich from Baltic Air at last minute prices plus a bunch of penalties–for the additional cost of $7,000. Knowing that delay would mean missing the tour and assuming this could be eventually resolved (it never was), we accepted the extortionate deal.
The approach to Copenhagen on a calm sunny day highlighted the flatness of Denmark’s topography and vulnerability to sea-level rise.
We’d booked a room in the boutique Hotel Savoy for two nights preceding the Firebird Company Tour and upon arrival delighted in the art-nouveau style of its facade designed by Anton Rosen (1859-1928),
whose eminent status among Danish architects was confirmed by a big book in the lobby.
Excited by the new destination, I went exploring the neighborhood and found a park that surrounded a large lagoon full of people enjoying the sunset
Google Maps led me back to the hotel via a street passing right through a fanciful theatre building
On the other end of the passage a restaurant window sported the image of an exuberant waiter
Its adjoining window opened to living chefs gesturing with equal exuberance
