| 08-May-2019 |  Copenhagen became part of this itinerary in part to add a new country to the list, and it’s a one hour flight from Berlin. That’s before Norwegian Air canceled the 9am direct flight and re-booked us on the 5pm direct flight. Amazingly, a quick call to the airline a few weeks ago when this went down got us a reasonable transfer via Stockholm, putting us in CPH at 1pm rather than 6pm. After two quick flights, we caught up with our bags and headed into Copenhagen.

We’re staying at the Scandic Front hotel, one of our favorite brands in this part of the world. Our room has a nice view of the water and the opera house … with windows that actually open.

Chilly sea air? Yes, please.

We walked canal side until it was time to duck into a side street and up to Kastellet, a star-shaped 17th-century fortress (trace italienne) on the harbor’s edge.

We’ve been to a similar, though much larger, fortress in Naarden, Netherlands. This one dates to 1664, and is still in regular use today for military offices and a library.

Taking advantage of the good weather, we had to check out the famous colored buildings of Nyhavn.  They are as advertised. 

Continuing on, we walked through the palace grounds, past Tivoli and into the meat packaging district to a wine bar recommended by a friend, Paté Paté. Their kitchen wasn’t open at the time, and they weren’t certain they could seat us when the kitchen did open, so we moved on.  I’d found another wine bar location on their website, and it was back in the direction of our hotel, so we decided to check it out. Bibendum vinbar – total win. Charcuterie, olives, cheese, bread and, of course, wine.