The Little Mermaid
Copenhagen is the capital of the north, a regal city that is intimate, cosmopolitan, full of fine old buildings, great cafes and made for walking. The city center is compact, there are pedestrian streets galore, and a good pair of walking shoes can get you to most places. It is also a seafaring city, and you are never far from the smell of salt air and the bustle of harbor life. But since one cannot return home from a trip to Denmark without having seen the mermaid, she can easily be included into any trip.
She sits out at the main harbor at Langelinie, but more interesting are the sites leading up to the mermaid. In days gone by, the Nyhavn district was a rough and wild sailors hang-out--not the place for respectable people to be seen. Today it is cleaned up and renovated but still retains the atmosphere of a fishing village. Dozens of colorful, gabled waterfront houses have been transformed into restaurants, where you can lunch on traditional Danish koldebord of herrings, pickled meats--and of course, washed down with Tuborg or Carlsberg beer.
Nyhavn is also the starting point for sight-seeing boar tours, such as an hour long canal trip that passes passes the Danish parliament at Christiansborg on the island of Slotsholmen and the quaint old seamen's quarter of the inner harbor. If you begin your exploration of the waterfront in Nyhavn, you will eventually wind up at Langelinie--with the Little Mermaid. Speaking of which, she did get her head back. The sawn-off head turned up in a box outside of a television station, and despite undergoing lab tests in hope of identifying the vandals (the Radical Feminist Faction just made up their story), the culprit still remains at large.
Aside from a few scratches, the head was in remarkably good condition, and is back where it belongs. The newly intact mermaid was unveiled about a month after her harrowing episode, and looks none worse for it.
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Books of Interest
Culture Shock!:Denmark by Morten Strange Living, visiting
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