Life on the Road - Kobenhavn
We got up early yesterday and took the train into Kobenhavn - what a beautiful city!! Our first adventure was to go on a walking tour with Hans Christian Anderson, an American who fell in love with a Dane 25 years ago
and stayed. He dresses and acts as if he were Hans himself - a very interesting and likeable fellow and extremely informative. He says he always has special topics for each of his tours and today's topics were commerce and welfare. So the Danes, while still very steeped in fishing and agriculture, have now established themselves as one of the pre-eminent manufacturers of highest quality specialty products in the world - Bang and Olafsen, Ecco, farm equipment, drugs, they make over 1/2 the large windfarm mills in the world, etc. The welfare side is more extensive than I had imagined - income tax hits most at 52% while the 25% VAT is on top of that! For that they all get totally free medical, education (university 
students also get $1000 a month for food, books, etc.), and end of life care, plus they all get six weeks of vacation a year, and a pension for life. The wages are pretty controlled from laborers at $20k to doctors at $120k. The tax on a new car is 180% - no wonder they all ride bikes! The tour was excellent, so if in Kobenhavn, take a walk with Hans.
This is a walking/biking city - there are free bikes around for anyone's use, but we could never find two available, so we walked and walked. The mile-long Stroget through the old city is just jam packed with people at just about any time of day and is all retail, cafes and bars - all very busy. It is holiday
time here, so most of the tourists were Danes. There are miles of canals throughout the city so we took a canal tour to rest our feet. This is also a great way to get an overview of everything you want to go back to and visit. Most of the old city was destroyed by fire in the 1800's so the old buildings are not ancient. Some of the new architecture is jaw dropping - the opera house, the Black Diamond library, and the Royal Danish Playhouse are all spectacular.
We ended up the long day by visiting Tivoli Gardens - no doubt this was Disney's inspiration for Disneyland. Beautiful grounds with lovely gardens,
ponds and flowers everywhere. But they also had rides for the younger set - some appeared so dangerous that they would never be seen in the US. About 40 restaurants, all private, are also on the property, so to celebrate BJ's birthday, she picked - tah dah - the Hard Rock Cafe!! After two weeks of dining "locally," we were both delighted to dive into some good Memphis pulled pork, along with a margarita. We strolled the grounds holding hands just like all the Danes, but ran out of juice about 10:30 and caught the train home. On Monday, we take off for a week long train trip into Sweden and Norway which will be our next adventure - on the road.
Stay in touch,
Al & BJ
We got up early yesterday and took the train into Kobenhavn - what a beautiful city!! Our first adventure was to go on a walking tour with Hans Christian Anderson, an American who fell in love with a Dane 25 years ago
and stayed. He dresses and acts as if he were Hans himself - a very interesting and likeable fellow and extremely informative. He says he always has special topics for each of his tours and today's topics were commerce and welfare. So the Danes, while still very steeped in fishing and agriculture, have now established themselves as one of the pre-eminent manufacturers of highest quality specialty products in the world - Bang and Olafsen, Ecco, farm equipment, drugs, they make over 1/2 the large windfarm mills in the world, etc. The welfare side is more extensive than I had imagined - income tax hits most at 52% while the 25% VAT is on top of that! For that they all get totally free medical, education (university 
students also get $1000 a month for food, books, etc.), and end of life care, plus they all get six weeks of vacation a year, and a pension for life. The wages are pretty controlled from laborers at $20k to doctors at $120k. The tax on a new car is 180% - no wonder they all ride bikes! The tour was excellent, so if in Kobenhavn, take a walk with Hans.This is a walking/biking city - there are free bikes around for anyone's use, but we could never find two available, so we walked and walked. The mile-long Stroget through the old city is just jam packed with people at just about any time of day and is all retail, cafes and bars - all very busy. It is holiday
time here, so most of the tourists were Danes. There are miles of canals throughout the city so we took a canal tour to rest our feet. This is also a great way to get an overview of everything you want to go back to and visit. Most of the old city was destroyed by fire in the 1800's so the old buildings are not ancient. Some of the new architecture is jaw dropping - the opera house, the Black Diamond library, and the Royal Danish Playhouse are all spectacular.We ended up the long day by visiting Tivoli Gardens - no doubt this was Disney's inspiration for Disneyland. Beautiful grounds with lovely gardens,
ponds and flowers everywhere. But they also had rides for the younger set - some appeared so dangerous that they would never be seen in the US. About 40 restaurants, all private, are also on the property, so to celebrate BJ's birthday, she picked - tah dah - the Hard Rock Cafe!! After two weeks of dining "locally," we were both delighted to dive into some good Memphis pulled pork, along with a margarita. We strolled the grounds holding hands just like all the Danes, but ran out of juice about 10:30 and caught the train home. On Monday, we take off for a week long train trip into Sweden and Norway which will be our next adventure - on the road.Stay in touch,
Al & BJ
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