Denmark day 3

Another overcast, cool day in Copenhagen. We got out in the late AM. Took a taxi to one end of what they call the "walking street" - Stroget. This concentrated shopping area is about 12 blocks long - starting at the Town Hall and ending at the Nyhavn - New Harbor. Mostly pedestrian only. Many names that you would recognize in the US - McDonalds, KFC, Footlocker, Rolex, Gucci, Chanel, 7-11, Burger King, H&M. Many others are obviously either local or European only retailers.

At Nyhavn, we joined a canal boat tour. The tour was about an hour and took us around many of the canals of Copenhagen. The guide pointed out the important sights visible from the canals. The new national theater building, the opera house, the "little mermaid", and several important castles and churches are on the tour.

After the canal tour, we walked part of Nyhavn which is a large collection of bars and restaurants. Once again, we ate outside - it seems that is pretty standard here and, for those who know me, this is already the third meal I have eaten outside.

One thing I haven't noted in previous updates is the amount of walking and bicycling they do here. It seems that there are literally hundreds of bicycles in the city and people use them to get around probably more than cars. Every street has a bicycle lane that is heavily used. When crossing streets, you absolutely must watch for bicycles as much as for cars - they might ring a bell, whistle or yell but they don't stop for walkers.

Also, when getting directions, it seems that everything is a "10 or 15 minute walk away". We quickly learned that their estimate was for a 20 year old in good shape and walking fast - not for people our age with health problems! Didn't take long for us to start taking taxis for these 10 minute walks.

For the curious, Jill and I see both doing well. Jill has been bothered just a little by a couple foods with too much salt - but she is handling it well. Once we get onboard the ship, they have instructions to prepare her food low salt/sodium. And, just before we left, my hypertension specialist had me drop one of my meds. So far so good. My BP was pretty much normal the past few days even without that med.

That's about it for Copenhagen. Tomorrow we will board the ship - so we won't try to do any further touring here. It will be interesting to perhaps get back to Copenhagen in the future since there are quite a few things we could not see on this trip.