Today we set off on foot for the National Art Gallery of Denmark, via the Botanic Gardens & this meant going past the markets so we detoured in to have another delicious flat white & I took some photos of the market. Does this make your mouth water?

The gardens were badly signposted – actually there were no signposts & we had to walk around 2 sides of it before we could find an entry. Plant names were in Danish not Latin as you expect in such a garden & many beds were overgrown with weeds. Not a good look!  It’s right beside the University Botany Department too!  But they did have plenty of pensioner seats for us to stop & rest.

When we found our way out of the gardens we were disorientated but eventually worked out where the gallery was. It was interesting to see the work of some Danish painters rather than all of our old favourites.

These were a couple of my favourites. The top one is by Dahl & the lower one by Skovgaard.

Then we wandered into the beautiful gardens of the Rosenborg Palace where the Danish flag was flying. Perhaps Mary was home?  We didn’t go into the castle to see the Royal jewels as we have seen too many ornate collections gathered while the poor people starved to death.

By this stage we were rather peckish so it was back to the markets for a smorrebrod or Danish Open sandwich. They are delicious, traditional & we really enjoy them. The bread here is wonderful as it has been across Scaninavia. We love it & can’t resist it!

I think David is getting to the stage where he will refuse to walk another step. Just as well we have only one day left to play before we head for home.

Last night we w ent to Toscana, the Italian speciality restaurant on Marina. It was also excellent & we are still amazed that there is no surcharge for these restaurants. My lobster tagliatelle was delicious:

I really enjoyed the views from our balcony like the sunset last night.

And this morning we woke to our first view of Copenhagen:

The cruise was wonderful. Oceania stinted on nothing. Free shuttles in any port where you couldn’t walk to town.  Everyone was very happy with the cruise. And then they spoiled it!  You could book a transfer from the ship to the city or to the airport for $400!  It’s 8km. Ridiculously exorbitant. So, of course, hardly anyone used them. We all waited for taxis. There were 3 other ships unloading at the same time so we were queueing for just over 2 hrs!  The taxi fare was $50.  So everyone finished the cruise with a bad taste in their mouth.

False economy, I reckon & not very good business.

Our hotel is quite comfortable but we have been spoiled with the luxurious cabin we had on Marina. It is right in the centre of the city. Today we’ve just had a wander to get our bearings. We found a great coffee shop with flat whites & a good restaurant serving typical Danish food where we had Danish roast pork with boiled baby potatoes & pickled red cabbage.

We had our photo taken with Hans Christian Andersen as we walked along the avenue named after him.

Think we’ll enjoy ourselves here.

Last night we went to Red Ginger,  the speciality Asian restaurant on board. What a treat!  We ordered the share plate first, expecting it to be quite small. Small, it wasn’t:

But it was delicious.

David chose lobster pad Thai as his main & I was choosing Dover sole tempura when the waiter asked if I’d tried their sea bass & when I said I hadn’t she said I should it was delicious.  So I ordered the sea bass.

It was amazing. It had been marinated in palm sugar & soy sauce for 24 hrs & was caramelised. It was so good!  But the waitress said that I needed to try the Dover sole as well so they brought that too!  It was lovely as well but not as good as the sea bass.

We refused dessert as we were so full but the waiter said that we had to, at least, try dessert as it was their speciality. So, there were 2 choices at the bottom of the menu for teaspoons of fancy ice creams so we chose 1 each. But that wasn’t good enough for them. They bought another dessert of 3 egg cup sized serves of icecreams & said we should try. So we did try then & they were lovely but we were so full afterwards that we waddled off to the show.

Tonight we’re going to the Italian restaurant, Toscana but I still feel full from last night.

This morning we docked in Warnemunde, Germany. Many people went on a 12 trip to Berlin but we thought we’d give that a miss & just wandered into Warnemunde which is a delightful little seaside resort. It was a fishing town but now is all about tourism with a wide beach & all these little shelters for hire & a number of wonderful sand sculptures of stories about Sinbad the Sailor.

We have washed & packed & must put our ports outside by 10pm & be off the ship by 9am tomorrow. Then we will explore Copenhagen. We’re getting close to the end of this amazing journey which has been great. We will be happy to be home though.

Today we once again became familiar with the London public transport system & if you have a map & a tube map, it’s pretty easy to get around What’s more people are very ready to help if you’re in trouble which is great. After a cold day yesterday, today was sunny & warm so much so that as I write this at 6:25pm, I’m sitting out in our little garden in

the sunshine.  Very pleasant!

David wanted to go back to the British Museum today, a place he really enjoys. When we got there, he decided he’d already seen the things he wanted to see & didn’t want to see them again. I giggled to myself. We wandered around for a few hours and were amazed at the huge numbers of people that were there.

Being big fans of the TV program, Selfridges, we wanted to visit Harry’s store. Of course, it’s nothing like it used to be now, being very similar to DJs back home with all the brand names occupying their own individual areas. The major difference is that it’s much much larger. I found some sandals I liked but they didn’t have any large enough for my ‘plates of meat’. There are 11 restaurants in the store & we decided to have a Sunday roast lunch. David had beef with Yorkshire pudding & I had the chicken. They were massive serves but very tasty – no way we could clean our plates.

We easily found our way back to Waterloo & the train to Wimbledon Station & jumped on the 93 bus to bring us home. Nothing looked familiar! You guessed it! We were heading away from home instead of towards home. But we did get home! There’s a great deal of construction happening in London, cranes tower over the skyline everywhere you look. It’s certainly a happening city!

Today is a beautiful sunny day in Devonport and the family took me to Mrs Jones for lunch. The spectacular view across Bass Strait and the great company set the scene for our lunch and the wait staff were very friendly and helpful.

That’s all very well, I can hear you say, but what did we eat? For entree we shared a delicious plate of tempura soft shell crab rice paper rolls. I could certainly have made a meal of these. We had four different mains, all of which were very tasty and extremely well presented:
Beef and reef
Slow braised lamb shoulder in cinnamon & allspice
Wild barramundi curry and
Aromatic coconut red duck curry

We were given a complimentary side of beans. The meals were neither too big nor too small – they were just right.

Two of us managed to have enough room to share the “sticky mother of a pudding” with figs, dates, white & dark chocolate. It looked & tasted wonderful. I’d definitely recommend sharing though unless you have just visited Mrs Jones for dessert. Another tried the raw salted caramel ice cream which was also yummy.

The wine list included many local Tasmanian wines by the glass and I enjoyed a couple of glasses of Goaty Hill Riesling whilst one of my daughters had a glass of a local sparkling and a mojito. The Tarkine Tiger sparkling mineral water was a pleasant non-alcoholic choice.

Coffees, hot chocolate, mocha & chai latté all came as ordered & were hot and a great finalé to our meal.

We decided we would all recommend Mrs Jones to our friends as we really enjoyed our experience. We could find no fault so I’ll give it a score of 9 out of 10.