Europe 2023, August 31

Another run at Amager Faelled, again with a slightly different and longer circuit, then back to breakfast before a day of rain was forecast to begin.

I got a daily ticket again and took the train out for the longest journey to start, to the Nike Factory at Herlev. There was only light rain when I arrived but no undercover areas outside the stores. I picked up four items to get the 40% discount, lucky I had the Nike app ready to go on my phone as it was needed for the offer. It only cost about $130 in total which was quite good for two shirts and two shorts.

In the time it took to do that the rain had turned into a storm. I stopped at a couple of supermarkets on the way back to the train about a kilometre away, just to get a break from the rain. Finally made it to the station and back into the city centre to go to the Round Tower.

I was deciding between Church Of Our Saviour and Round Tower as they both have a stair climb and rooftop view. Because of the rain and the church having an outdoor stair climb at the top I thought it might be closed due to the conditions.

The Round Tower still had an interesting walk to the top, the whole way up is a curved slope, except for a narrow set of one-way stairs at the very top. There was a good view of Copenhagen from the top, basically a bunch of castles and some quite dense multi-story buildings for the rest.

One the way back down I got some very expensive magnets from the gift shop, but they were good quality ones and only cost a bit more than the crappy souvenir store ones. I also had a quick look inside Trinitatis church which is next to the tower, which had some nice designs.

I went to have lunch over at Superkilen Park next which is described as an urban park. It sounded interesting but there wasn't really anything there, just more bike paths, and it started raining again so all the seating areas were wet. I think it just looks interesting from an aerial shot since it has many different different coloured paths and patterns on the ground.

I happened to be passing close to Frederiksberg Gardens next on the train back to the hotel so got out there and had a look too. There was another big castle at one end of the park and the city zoo was just a bit further but wasn't in my plans.

I was considering going to watch Talk To Me at the unique looking Palads cinema as a backup plan if the rain had persisted all day. The rain was only light for most of the day after the first hour as it turned out, but I still had a little spare time in the evening so went to the movie anyway. It was alright for a first movie from these Australian brothers, but a little predictable and also confusing towards the end, about a 6 out of 10. As a bonus the audio was in English with subtitles.

That was it for Copenhagen, one last repacking of the suitcase and several more layers of duct tape on the suitcase wheel as a precaution.

Copenhagen

• 8 out of 10

Good

• Lots of castles and other options
• Great public transport

Bad

• Expensive

Missed Out

• Bakken amusement park - closed most of the year
• Church Of Our Saviour - similar to Round House but a more dramatic outdoor stair climb
• Copenhagen Zoo - has some mixed reviews
• Den Bla Planet aquarium - was a backup plan for bad weather or running out of ideas
• Jaegersborg deer park
• Louisiana museum of modern art
• Other castles - there's about six major ones

Malmo

• 7 out of 10

Good

• Close to Copenhagen
• Two museums at a good price

Bad

• Another currency, but only needed to use credit card
• Best suited for a day trip, or further exploring Sweden

Missed Out

• Triangeln district - the other main train stop on the intercity line, underneath the shopping centre

Europe 2023, August 30

A second run at Amager Faelled park with a slightly different route. It's amazing in the early morning when you enter the park and the temperature immediately drops like five degrees.

I walked up to the central station after breakfast to buy a ticket for Malmo - trains leave about every 20 minutes. It actually works out much better buying at the station instead of online, since you don't have to pick a train just the date and the destination station. It cost about $40 for a return ticket to Malmo, about 45 minutes each way via the airport.

I arrived at central station not far from the city centre, containing:

• Stortorget - main square with town hall building
• Lilla Torget - smaller square with some nice old fashioned buildings
• Sodergatan - main shopping street, very empty on a Wednesday morning at 11am
• Gustav Adolfs torg - another square next to Sodergatan
• Gamla Kyrkogarden - the old cemetery
• Kungsparken - the park along the river
• Castle Gardens windmill - the gardens surrounding the castle and moat

Crossing over the moat was Malmo Castle, which contains Malmo Museum. I expected the castle itself would be the best bit, but after finally getting to those rooms at the end of the visit it was quite uninteresting.

The museum started with a few art exhibitions, I thought the modern stuff was very good, all the old portraits of people from like the 1600s was boring. There was also an impressive concert hall room on the same level. Down at the bottom strangely there was also a small aquarium as an unexpected bonus, and a bit of a natural history section with replica animals.

There was much more than I expected in total, only to realise the combo ticket also gives you access to the technology and maritime museum across the road. It looked like most people didn't even know about this place as it was very quiet.

The technology / transport half was much better than the maritime, which was just about old ships. The transport section included a small submarine you could walk through. I could barely make it through the small round hatches - not helped by weeks of walking, I could barely bend my back and legs enough to squeeze through. There was also various other cars and light planes, and a section with Swedish inventions - excluding Ikea.

On the top level there was a sort of interactive games room, but I was the only person on the whole level for the whole time I was there. It has some fun interactive science kind of demonstrations, as well as some skill challenges, a shame nobody was making use of it. Most of the puzzle games felt like they had been taken straight out of seasons of Survivor or The Challenge.

With the two museums combined I spent much longer that expected, so it was already 2pm before I even had a chance for lunch and to rest my legs.

After lunch I searched around for a magnet, I thought Sweden (yet another currency) might be a bit cheaper than Denmark but not according to the souvenirs. As per usual my left foot was the most sore so I had to compromise and only walked half way to the Turning Torso building, the final item on my checklist. As a bonus though I got to see a couple of lighthouses on the way.

That it was for the quick visit to Sweden and it was back on the train into Copenhagen to finish the day.

Europe 2023, August 29

Ran across the river and into Amager Faelled park instead before breakfast this time. It's a huge park but has so many different twisty paths surrounded by trees so you can't tell exactly where you are. I managed to do a loop without getting lost, helped only slightly by the route map screen on my watch because it's zoomed in too far to show the whole journey.

Was still working out a plan for the day after finishing breakfast, I purchased a daily travel ticket so planned to make use of it with a few longer trips. Was going to start at Christiansborg Palace but realised some parts don't open until late morning or even the afternoon.

Instead travelled over to Amager Strandpark. There was a small fort on the other side of the road to the park (Kastrup Fort) but mostly it was just an abandoned area. Decided to walk up Amager Standpark along the beach, but the walk felt like it too forever. Was a nice area next to the sound (Oresund) water way, with lots of wind turbines but not much else to see.

Got the train across to the other side of the city to a shopping area for lunch. Came across a Lidl which finally has a good bakery compared to all the other supermarkets - it's almost identical to an Aldi in all other regards. Also had a Nike store and amazingly the only place where prices weren't outrageous - but only after the advertised discounts like buy 3 get 30% off. Didn't buy anything but might go back on the last day if I change my mind.

It was getting towards mid afternoon now so headed back to the city centre for Christiansborg Palace. There's a free tower at the entrance you can walk up to overlook the city, but it was closed...

I was somewhat pessimistic about the ticket price being over $30 for the four areas you get to visit, but took a gamble since I had no alternative plans. First was the royal stables, some white horses hanging out and a collection of expensive looking carriages, as well as a room with various artifacts - pretty average.

Next was the royal reception rooms and tapestries, an English guided tour was about to begin so I waited for that. You have to wear those plastic coverings over your shoes to not damage the wood floors for the whole visit - like being in a hospital. The tour guide was great, spoke English well and gave a much better explanation of Denmark and the palace than just walking around by yourself.

A room of tapestries sounds pretty boring, but they were these huge multi-year artworks packed which hundreds of small Denmark and world history events for different time periods. This quarter of the ticket alone made the visit worthwhile.

Next was the underground ruins which I expected to be good but was a little repetitive. It's interesting though to see how the basements still contains many different layers of walls of old iterations of the castles.

Last was the royal kitchens which was the low point of the visit, it's just a recreation of a few kitchen rooms with no interactivity at all. If you didn't buy the combo ticket for all four places you could have paid nearly $15 just to see a kitchen as a single ticket.

It was already after 5pm so I headed back to the hotel and grabbed dinner on the way, since I still had to plan out the Malmo 'international' trip for the following day.

Europe 2023, August 28

Went running at Copenhagen Lakes on the west side of the city centre before breakfast. It's about four different lakes divided by roads, but most require crossing the street which is not great. It was an ok route except for those road crossings, with a mixture of road and dirt surfaces, but could have been a bit longer also.

I got back in time for the booked breakfast slot, it was still quite busy but just enough seating. The food was spread out all around the room so it was a bit hard to find everything, and some of it was strange unknown local Denmark products. Found a waffle machine at the end, put in the batter, closed the lid, and it starts makes this loud beeping sound. Apparently you have to flip the machine upside down after closing the lid, but it wasn't written on the instructions. Makes no sense to me why it's needs to be turned upside down to start cooking anyway. The rest of the breakfast was ok, got the usual apple juice, muesli, and yoghurt.

I decided to go to the nearby laundry before leaving for the day, so I wouldn't have to worry about that again for the rest of the trip. It turned out to be a pretty good laundry since you could pay by credit card and it automatically dispenses the washing liquid into the machine too. The instructions for the settings weren't that clear but I think I ended up with the default setting of normal temperature and 40 minutes.

Dropped off the clothes to dry, then off to the station to travel a few stops to Osterport. The problem entering the destination station into the machine is you need to know if the O is regular, has a diagonal line through it, or two dots above it. If you get the wrong one it just doesn't show up in the search results at all. Got out at Osterport (the O with a diagonal line through it) and walked over to Kastellet.

Kastellet is an old fort shaped in a star that also has a windmill in the middle. There was some serious looking guards with rifles at the entrance checking cars driving in, but at the same time the public can just walk in.

Also nearby was the famous Little Mermaid statue, which is as small as described, and sitting just off land in the water. There wasn't a massive amount of people there given the number of parked tourist buses nearby, maybe 100 people. The only annoying thing is the idiots who want to get right up close for their photo, so nobody else can get a photo without them in it.

Walked down towards the city via the Amalienborg palace district, it's where some of the royals live but I didn't know at the time. There was a Denmark version of the British palace guards standing around out front with a big crowd, but otherwise nothing was happening.

Continued walking past some theatre, saw the opera house (not as good as Sydney) across the other side of the river, then got to Nyhavn. It's a small inlet of water with lots of boats docked, and all the 3-4 story houses along each side are painted different colours - lots of restaurants and people around.

Got to Stroget next which is the main shopping strip, so started to have a look for some lunch after lots of walking. The supermarkets have all been quite disappointing as they have very limited bread and pastry options in their bakery. On the other hand they have heaps of different energy drinks but I have no idea which are good and what the flavours are. So far I've had one good and one very bad. One of them had "mega" versions of energy drinks which were like a whopping 650ml instead of the usual 500ml cans.

Walked to the nearby botanical gardens to sit and eat lunch. Half of the gardens were closed for renovations and only one entrance was open, lucky it was the corner I turned up at.

After lunch went to see if the Torvehallerne food market had anything good to buy for later but didn't find anything. Started heading back towards the hotel via another park and city hall square.

Lots of souvenir shops were nearby so picked up an expensive magnet, but they accepted euros so was good to get rid of some old currency at least. Continued on via the Hans Christian Andersen statue and the boundary of Tivoli Gardens to continue back to the hotel.

My watch was getting up to 30,000 steps for the day which is rather high, and my foot (left always) was starting to get sore as a result. Took some time to rest at the hotel before heading out to find dinner nearby.

Europe 2023, August 27

Last run in Eindhoven back at the canals, the roads and bike lanes were finally clear on Sunday morning and the rain just finished in time. That was followed by the usual waste of buffer time and actual travel time taking an intercity train to the airport and then a short international flight.

I thought there might be some delays with the F1 on the same weekend but it was an easy trip through to the airport, and only a small number of Red Bull fans were out so early. Got through bag drop and security pretty quick, then only had about an hour for the plane to leave. I was stuck sitting next to a woman who kept coughing every few minutes, thought people might have started wearing masks when they're sick now just in case.

I waited forever at the luggage carousel until thankfully my suitcase showed up right at the very end. The duct tape on the wheel has been holding together, but might need another patch up before leaving again. It was very easy to get into the city on the metro, changed platforms for an additional three stops then was at the hotel a short walk away.

By the time I was ready to leave the hotel again it was nearly 4pm so just went to explore the surroundings for a while. I got up towards the city centre and Tivoli Gardens amusement park before turning back. Found some supermarkets along the way, they also have 7-elevens here, and a close laundromat, although the instructions might be a little confusing.

Got a bit of emergency Danish money from the ATM since they don't use euros for some reason, the ATM exchange rate seemed really poor. I also immediately realised everything is crazy expensive here, somehow even another level beyond paying in pounds and euros so far.

The area close the hotel seemed a little strange, seems like a gentrified conversion of an old industrial area. Later I realised on the map it's referred to as the meat packing district, which makes more sense.

Got dinner and checked out the TV channels, sadly only like 10 channels and nothing in English like BBC. No fridge either but they have an interesting approach to the breakfast buffet, you have to book a time slot and you get 40 minutes.

I was going to go back out and walk around a second time but it started raining and I didn't pack an umbrella. The rain forecast for the coming days looks quite patchy too, which is a bit of a worry. I did bring a rain jacket designed for running in wet conditions, but it's not fully waterproof.

Made a bit of a plan for the morning that won't make me go bankrupt and tried to find a way to watch the last day of world athletics via VPN. Not looking forward to the evenings so much for the next week with no more athletics on at night and no English channels either.

Europe 2023, August 26

Got to have a late start by usual standards, leaving after 8am to get across to parkrun for the standard European 9am start. Lucky I had checked the facebook page the night before and saw they had a change of venue due to another event in the park at the usual location.

Instead of a minor adjustment they had confined the course to a really small 1.2 kilometre loop done four and a bit times. I ran around the whole lake during my warmup and they easily could have done a single 2.5 kilometre out and back instead, while still avoiding the inaccessible area.

Anyway, I started off slow as the parkrun began due to fatigue from holiday walking and settled into third place. I wasn't making much ground on the first two for the first lap and didn't think I'd catch them. I gradually got a bit quicker and overtook them on the second and third laps to win by about 15 seconds.

Afterwards I jogged back to the hotel through the university and had breakfast, my legs were feeling quite sore from the faster running. I wasn't in a big hurry as the Philips museum didn't open until 11am, and got there soon after it opened.

This was more of a proper museum than some of the previous ones, with a proper audio guide and lots of other text descriptions to read on the wall. The first half was all about the early days of their company and their light bulb production. Later on it got a bit more into some of their other research and development, but not as much detail.

The secondary focus was probably their radios and some health equipment, while televisions didn't get much attention. On the upper floor there was a gallery of many of the old products they have created, and a section of old advertising material. The final room was some future technology interactive thing that claimed I was 1.87 metres tall.

Afterwards there was an extra section for their sports involvement, in particular with the PSV football team, but it wasn't as good as I would have expected. Overall a good museum for a couple of hours to look through everything. I found a couple of magnets in the gift shop on the way out, although unfortunately none of them included the city name.

I had a break for lunch then decided I would try one more museum that got a good rating, the DAF museum. It was a little bit further from the city centre, but still within walking distance.

This museum was dedicated to all the vehicles the DAF company has produced. It looked small from the entrance but was actually quite a large warehouse with a few levels, although it was a bit of a maze to see everything. It seems DAF have built a bit of everything, from cars to trucks to emergency vehicles to garbage trucks to small tanks.

One section had a lot of on-loan cars that weren't even DAF related which was a bit strange, like BMW and Mercedes. They also had some racing cars like an old Williams Renault and some other rally and lower class formula divisions. Overall a decent museum but a little expensive and not as good as Philips.

I was a bit tired so decided to finish for the day and head back to the hotel, picking up an Eindhoven magnet on the way. I had originally planned to go to the PSV soccer match in the late afternoon also, but as they were still involved in additional matches during the week for Champions League qualifying it had been postposed.

In addition to all of the the unadvertised facilities the hotel website also claimed they had a 24 hour business centre with printing. When I asked at the reception they seemed very confused by the question, all they could suggest was to email them a document and they'd print it.

I checked the status of my Emirates flights home and found a front row premium economy had opened up for the 2pm-9pm from London to Dubai. Since I wouldn't be trying to sleep I thought the extra legroom was worth a risk versus the downside of the toilet traffic, bright lights, and crying babies. I might keep checking and see if the front row window seat becomes clickable later, for now I could only get the aisle set.

Eindhoven

• 7 out of 10

Good

• Lots of bicycle and walking lanes
• Safe and walkable city

Bad

• Credit card avoidance
• Hotel not meeting specifications
• No trams
• PSV museum not available without tour
• PSV soccer match was postponed

Missed Out

• Berenkuil street art
• PSV stadium tour and museum
• Strijp-S neighbourhood
• Van Abbe museum

The Hague

• 5 out of 10

Good

• Compact city with good tram network
• Limited activities

Bad

• Museum locations a bit too spread out

Missed Out

• Kunstmuseum
• Louwman museum

Europe 2023, August 25

Had some serious delayed soreness in both arms from carrying the suitcase yesterday. I found a good running route down along the canals, a great path that looks like goes on forever. Afterwards I tried my luck turning up to the hotel breakfast area and found out it was included with my booking, similar stuff again to previous places but also had great mini pancakes.

I took an earlier morning train than planned to Den Haag also known as The Hague, again I had a daily booking for any train each way.

The first stop after arriving was following the signs to the Mauritshuis museum. It was quite expensive at nearly 20 euros, in a nicely decorate building that was more like a refurbished house, but only had two floors worth of paintings.

The lower floor had lots of random paintings and old portraits. There was a few Vermeer on the upper floor including the most famous Girl With Pearl Earring, the collection from other well known artists like Rembrandt weren't very good. I probably spent an hour walking around, it wasn't too busy and didn't have any descriptions for most paintings other than the artist and title.

I planned to see the Binnenhof / Ridderzaal old court next but it was all closed for a five year excavation and renovation. Instead went around some of the centrum aka city centre:

• De Passage shopping hall
• Grote Markt
• Het Plein square
• St James church

There was a couple of other optional museums on my list but were spread out quite far around the city, although still reasonably accessible by a good tram network. Instead got the tram to the Scheveningen area by the beach.

They've constructed a large pier with some rides on the top level, on the bottom level was some very empty and quite old looking restaurants. There was a decent amount of people around on the beach and boardwalk, but only about one person in each of these restaurant at around 1pm. Probably they aren't as popular as the many large restaurants that have been established along the boardwalk. The pier also felt like it was from the 90's or something going by the vintage decorations and all the pinball machines.

I walked down the beach for a while and found another tram stop going back in to centrum. I didn't have too much more to look at in the city area so got the train back to Eindhoven a little early instead of visiting more museums. Since the train was only a few minutes away I thought I was going to miss out on a magnet but just had time to get one from the information centre at the station.

Back at the hotel I Managed to locate the self-service laundry in the hotel, it was hidden away down the end of a hallway without any signs, near the cleaning staff rooms. The gym was in a equally strange location down two sets of stairs in some dark basement room.