The Bridge, bikes and blaring music - Sunday 18th September

We left Sweden on Saturday morning and drove across the 16km long Oresund Bridge (of ‘The Bridge’ fame), to Denmark with smiles on our faces all the way. What an amazing structure. It was built between 1995 and 1999, opening in July 2000 and costing €2.6 billion. It’s a combined railway and motorway bridge, the longest in Europe, running from Malmo in Sweden to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the Oresund strait, where it plunges down into a tunnel before continuing to Copenhagen in Denmark. It takes approx 10 minutes to drive across and cost €110 for each of the motorhomes. Please note - the aerial view is a stock photo not from our drone 😂!

We had taken a flyer with the campsite in Copenhagen as we couldn’t book online for some reason; we had filled in the online booking form and tried paying with all our various credit cards - but they were rejected one by one …..and we couldn’t ALL have gone over our limits…could we?

The site we wanted to stay on was right by the ferry terminal. It had basic amenities and was reasonably priced which was good; we wanted to stay for 3 nights, until the Tuesday after the Queens funeral, so we made our way there with fingers crossed.  Yay. There was room for us and there we found out the reason that our credit cards had been declined. It seems that after Brexit, UK credit cards can be used to pay at credit card terminals in Denmark (tap and go etc), but you cannot make any online payments, as the Banks have formed no agreement for this type of transaction.  The guy at the camping place was so helpful, and we were able to pay at his cc terminal! However he measured the vans - (well, Richard and mine’s), as he thought we were over 8m which is the maximum length allowed at the site.

There was a bus stop right outside the site, so we bought tickets and set off into Copenhagen city for an explore and lunch. What a beautiful place - the architecture is so different, a mixture of  styles and colours, with wide open streets and…cycles. Lots and lots of them. Over 50% of the city’s population cycle to work, come winter or summer. You have to be very careful not to be mown down by rampant cyclists when crossing roads; there are 5 bikes for every 4 people!  They have bikes of all descriptions, lots of which have massive front-mounted buckets/trailers/enclosures on them, to carry children/babies/shopping/pets/dead bodies - whatever. The one in the picture is considered a basic model and costs approx. £2700.00. They can be very wide too!  Copenhagen is built for cycling and the empty (for a city) roads bear witness to that.

We spent Saturday and today walking and bussing around the city, taking in the sights. We saw the changing of the guard complete with brass band at the Royal Palaces (there are 4 identical palaces situated around a square), walked along the river by the opera house and looked at the boats, wandered around the ramparts of the star fort, and saw heaps of statues, monuments and sculptures including the iconic Little Mermaid. What a fascinating place - I can well recommend a citybreak there if ever you are stuck for somewhere to go!

Saturday night was not too peaceful though. During the late afternoon, there was loud music playing from a cruise ship docked nearby, which gave 3 massive hoots on its horn before setting sail, waking up the boys who had been having a post-explore siesta!  Then later in the evening, more loud music, followed by revving engines, fireworks and screeching of tyres which went on until the early hours. We found out later that Copenhagen’s ‘young people’ sometimes gather on the industrial park nearby, play music and race their cars. Then some killjoy phones the local rozzers, who come and block all the roads leading out of the area, pile in and take all the cars away, which are never seen again by the owners.  It appears that Mr Killjoy is none other than our campsite manager. But we won’t tell anyone!

The noise kept Richard, Lynn and John awake whilst I slept through it all, however I did have bad dreams, so this morning, I don’t think any of us was in the best health and temper! But as the coffee and chat kicked in, our moods improved and our eventual lunch in the Hard Rock Cafe was excellent; they even took requests from us, so we sat, eating and drinking to Queen, David Bowie and Pink Floyd.  Great food, music, beer and G&T’s - perfect (apart from the Ed Sheeran track which ruined the ambience for John!😂).

Tomorrow we intend to be mostly watching the Queen’s funeral.

High 12 degrees, low 7 degrees and a bit rainy, mileage (for yesterday!) 51km. Campsite cost: £30 per night.