A surprise at lunch!

We saw a short but good laser show at Tivoli last night - the whole place looks good lit up, even though it is basically an amusement park. It has been in existence since 1843, and this is where Walt Disney got the idea for Disneyworld. The rest, as they say, is history.

Today we took the train north to Helsingor - Hamlet's Elsinore. The main reason was to visit the Technical Museum - steam engines, planes, cars, motorbikes and more, John's idea of heaven. It was tucked away on an industrial estate and obviously doesn't get many international visitors. John spent a happy half hour talking to Paul, an 83 year old ex aircraft engineer who spends his Sundays helping to build a replica of Denmark's first ever passenger aircraft. An amazing character, he lives 50 miles away and gets there by train and electric bike every Sunday, his day off from caring for his sick wife.

Had a traditional smorgasbord lunch in a lovely 17th century building. I asked for water, and it arrived in a bottle - with a naked man carrying two pails on it! Rear view of course, and when you turned the bottle round it was still the rear view! So even though I have some good castle and museum views this had to be today's blip!

The sun put in an appearance so we wandered off to see the castle, which is having some restoration done. On the way John spotted what he thought was a steam boat, and sure enough, it was a big steam tug boat, 'Bjorn', owned by a consortium of enthusiasts who keep it running and take paying passengers in summer to pay for the coal. Anyone could just wander on board and look around, so needless to say another hour passed quite happily chatting. The new Danish Maritime Museum is being built near the castle, due to open in the summer.

Back to Copenhagen then to the airport. Home well after midnight, shattered. A busy but super few days. Will try and catch up with everyone's journals in the next few days.