Copenhagen, home of beautiful people, hotdogs, and hippies.

Welcome to Copenhagen!  It's a city where you'll find plenty of beautiful cobblestone streets and copper sculptures in every square and atop many buildings.  It has tall, narrow buildings and canals much like Amsterdam - but this city has a bit more flair, and space (as in people give you bubble space here - Amsterdammers don't!)!

Copenhagen is known for a few things.

It's been rated as the best city to live in the world for quality of life (2008, Monocle magazine).  It's known for being full of beautiful, fashionable people.  Every corner has a hotdog stand.  And hippies?  There's an autonomous neighborhood of about 850 people in the midst of this metropolis - "Freetown Christiania",  which is probably best known for it's hippies, art and mary jane. 

Dog, curry ketchup, fried onions, sweet pickles.  *so Danish!*  You eat it standing up at the "Poelse" cart!

One of the reasons Copenhagen is lauded for quality of life it's walking streets and bike lanes which creates community and is environmentally savvy.

This is the main walking street.  It's packed with shoppers and boasts street performers, musicians and open-air galleries.

And there are tons of bikes!

After an afternoon exploring the city, it was time for a stop at the bakery for a coffee!

Ahhh, coffee!

 Christiania is a strangely wonderful, yet tacky place.  It got its start about 40 years ago when some squatters took over a Naval base (below: Christiania follows the coast line where you see all the trees and the land juts out).  They made it the home of free spirits who wanted a different kind of life.

 Being here felt a bit like Peter Pan's land of imagination.  If you can dream it, and scrounge up materials for it - you can make it! There are no rules.

Okay, there are a few rules: their Common law includes things like "no guns", "no hard drugs", and "no explosives". Not bad. 

There was graphitti absolutely everywhere!!

Wandering through the different neighborhoods within this "neighborhood" you constantly feet lost.  Dirt roads curve from a cluster of houses with erratically spaced out-buildings and random uses of space - a ship under a tarp "guarded" by an image of Daffy Duck, an industrial-sized dumpster plopped sideways next to a house, and stacks of all sorts of lumber here and there.  Generally, it's chaotic, if not colorful.  Yards seemed to always be quite unruly, but filled with flowers! ...and in the case of this house... marijuana.

Maybe this is why there are "NO PHOTOS" signs everywhere???

Haha!  Oops - got a photo anyway..!

This is one sweet ride!

After a few hours I was ready to head back out into the "real world":

Next stop: the Palace.

The Queen's guard.

The Palace consists of 4 buildings.  Here you see one of them, and the statue in the center of the square.

Time for a night out!  Notice the sign which reads, "Probably the Best Beer in Town".  Not too tempting.. sorry.

Prefunc: listening to the DJ spin jazz before dancing the night away!

After a 4-day weekend, if asked my rating I would say.... Copenhagen is great.  Fantastic even.  But the catch -  this city is about twice as expensive as other European cities such as Amsterdam or Barcelona.  Youch!  So, I'm sorry Copenhagen,  you're just shy of winning the "amazing" award from me.  But still - it's a wonderful place to visit!