Parks and castles in Copenhagen

On Saturday there was the Gay pride in Copenhagen.  We decided to try to avoid the parade area a bit as I feared it would be mad crazy and therefore maybe a little difficult with a toddler that wants to walk himself, although I hoped I'd see some of the party nevertheless.

On the subway we shared the ride already with 2 men in rainbow bowties but we got off a stop early near the botanical garden.  

I find that I really start liking & judging cities by their downtown parks and the use of them by its residents: how much green is there and how is it used? 
So we started by exploring in the botanical garden which only has 2 entrances while there is plenty of fences & locked gates along the surrounding roads...it's a bit a pity to first have to walk half of the perimeter to be able to get in and then also walk inside back to the entry you came from as that makes most sense with the rest of your tour you want to do in Copenhagen.  I don't really know why they keep all their gates locked?

In the garden were some old-timer food trucks as we tend to see all over Copenhagen.  The food truck hype is really bigger here than in Belgium and create a lot of little pop-up cafĂ© corners which is really nice. We had a loop walk through the park at the speed of a toddler who finds rubbing each found little stone on his track very entertaining ;)






Across the botanical garden, we had the entrance of the Rozenberg castle: a very charming former residence from the Danish king. I had to stand in line for a while to exchange my "Copenhagen card" for the free entrance tickets, then had to find change to put my bags in the mandatory locker. Fortunately Jan and Kabouter could amuse themselves outside a bit by watching the guards...who Kabouter was imitating at the end :p...very cute. Inside we took a tour of the Danish crown jewels in the basement treasury.  Impressive although my visit to the Kremlin treasury in Moscow will spoil all other treasuries as mediocre.






A few blocks from the Rosenberg castle is Amalienborg Palace, the current residence of the queen and also of her son's family. The palace square is surrounded with some neo classical buildings that are nice but not too impressive either.   We were glad to see large crowds of tourists leave : we were arriving after the change of guards and didn't mind.  Yet there were still 2 groups of guards on the square with 2 lines of watching tourists. We joined for a bit but beside 4 marching guards that disappeared not much was happening, so we went on.

The nearby big fountain was a good stop to get water blown on us on our faces and to jump in the puddles.











We headed back downtown where we strolled through the shopping streets and had some drinks while Kabouter had crashed for a much needed nap.








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