5. Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen.

Following a day at sea and our first formal night, Tuesday's port of call was Copenhagen and we had set ourselves a target of taking a canal cruise and then getting to the top of three of the tallest buildings in the city (the Church of St Saviour, the Town Hall and the Round Tower).

The ship's berth was about a half hour's walk into town, but as it was a lovely sunny day and the route took us past Copenhagen's iconic Little Mermaid statue, it made a very pleasant start to our task. This was our first visit to the city since 2008, and it was immediately obvious how much development and construction had been undertaken along the waterfront. 

Anyway, we found our way to Nyhaven (or "new harbour" for any non Danish speakers) and to the ticket booth for the canal cruise. The next hour or so was spent wending our way along the city waterways and ducking under very low bridges (made even lower than usual because of an exceptionally high tide). It's a very relaxing way to see the city from a different angle.

Once back on land we made our way to the church...the attraction being that it is possible to climb to the top of the steeple using steps that wind around the outside of the structure. Unfortunately, things had changed a lot since we had last done this climb and the queue for tickets would have meant us waiting around for an hour...not a good use of time...so we just took a couple of pictures and moved on to the next goal. Incidentally, when we did the ascent last time, it meant a scramble up through the rafters on rickety ladders. Now there is a proper staircase to get to the start of the climb. Those 'Elf and Safety people get everywhere...it's not quite the adventure that it used to be.

After a stop for coffee and a cake, we moved on to goal number three, the town hall. This building is very close to the famous Tivoli Gardens and has a tall tower that dominates the central square. The time was 12.45 and the next time the tower opened for climbing was 2pm. Once again, we couldn't really wait around as there were still things we wanted to do, so that was our second minor disappointment. 

Never mind, there was still the Round Tower a short walk away and when we arrived it was open for business and there was no queue! This tower was built in the 17th century primarily as an observatory and used by astronomers of the time including Tycho Brahe. Indeed, it is still used today and there is a large telescope in the dome at the top. The building is also unusual in that there are no steps; just a winding pathway up through the interior which is wide enough for a horse and carriage. Once at the top the view over the city is spectacular, (more so on the day as the skies were virtually cloudless),and we could even see the Swedish city of Malmo across the Strait.

Photographs taken, we made our way back down and started to make our way back to the ship. As it was the middle of the Copenhagen Jazz Festival we stopped briefly to listen to a band playing in the precinct and then stopped again a little further on at a waterfront cafe for a well deserved icecream. We made it back to the gangway with 10 minutes to spare before sailaway and although we had only achieved half of the things we had set out to do, it had been a wonderful, wonderful day.