Denmark. Copenhagen

A city where the spirit of freedom is felt... Just for this feeling and the Nyhavn district, it's worth visiting Copenhagen... Colorful houses from the 17th-18th centuries located along the harbor and old ships create an incredible atmosphere, especially if you are with your loved one...

The prices in the establishments are off the charts... Some people enjoy themselves in restaurants, some settle for a picnic on the pier, some uncork wine sitting on the canal walls... There are many equipped public places with tables and benches where people relax after mooring their boat or bicycle... By the way, bicycles are everywhere; this is a feature of all the most developed cities. A free toilet at the beginning of the harbor is an added convenience. There is no ban on drinking alcohol, no ban on going down to small piers, no bans on anything... And yet everything is clean and peaceful... This is probably the secret of this sense of freedom... This spirit has been created over the centuries by the bohemian residents - artists, writers, and sailors who, returning from long voyages, anchored in local taverns... In one of the colorful houses in Nyhavn harbor lived the famous Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen...

During our entire stay in Copenhagen, I can't recall if I saw even a single police officer... But I think this is not an indication of lawlessness, but rather a well-thought-out security organization; after all, you should only meet law enforcement due to a violation, not at every turn... However, I have never encountered such thorough scrutiny at a security checkpoint as I did at Copenhagen Airport...

Everything is automated; the metro is driverless and you can sit right at the front window, though the controllers do keep a friendly watch over passenger awareness, occasionally checking tickets... In the simple hostel where we stayed, everything was opened with a magnetic card individually programmed for the entrance doors, building doors, room doors, and the storage locker...

And here is how Copenhagen opened up to us... Nyhavn harbor in the morning...

The Royal Guard on the square near Amalienborg Palace...

The traditional English Church of St. Alban, built in 1887...

The Gefion Fountain... According to Germanic-Scandinavian mythology, the king of Sweden promised the goddess Gefion as much land as she could plow with four oxen... She turned her mighty four sons, born of a giant, into oxen and plowed so much land that it formed the island of Zealand, on which Copenhagen is located...

The Kastellet Bastion...

The iconic statue of the Little Mermaid... Its popularity is evident from the large crowd of tourists around it...

In the daytime, the city was free of fog...

The bay in the rays of the sun...

The city panorama from the highest point in Copenhagen, the tower of Christiansborg Palace... The climb to the observation deck is free, but to reach the top of the tower, we stood in line for about 30 minutes and had to pass through a metal detector and bag check... But it was worth it...

Inside the tower, projections of pigeons accompanied by sound effects appear on the walls, moving from place to place as if alive... This type of installation reminds visitors that the top of the tower was home to many birds for over a hundred years...