Somewhere I'd always wanted to visit was Russia. This is a vast country with a rich history and diverse ethnic groups but can not be done in a single trip. For my first visit I planned to start in St Petersburg before taking the train to Helsinki and carrying on thru the Baltic capitals to Stockholm, something else I'd always wanted to do and a popular backpack route.Like China and the few remaining communist style regimes this would involve getting a tourist vis...

A few weeks before my trip I was watching a show on cities by the sea. They did an episode on Copenhagen and were talking about how the city and all its outlying regions had been converted to an extensive biking network. As someone who does city biking I found this interesting and it somewhat prepared me for what I was about to encounter.The extend to which the Copenhagen region has embraced the bike culture is near impossible to miss, it permeates to every singl...

My trip was finally over and I had to get to the airport. I stopped by a local bakery to stock up on food since Icelandair charges for food, I don't like their choices, and they are not filling enough for a transatlantic flight.Metro fare was 36K ($7) but I only had 35K in coins. I tried my credit card but it got rejected. I'd been having problems from day 1 with my visa card being locked, I was relying on my other two cards, now one had locked again and I was do...

Today was my last day in Copenhagen and the end of my two week trip. My return flight was 2pm so I had to be at the airport by noon giving the whole morning still to explore.I left the hotel by 8am hoping to visit nearby Rosenborg Palace. This is a smaller version of the larger water castles but located in city park having been absorbed by urbanization.I visited in 2003 and remember small rooms crammed full of furniture. I was hoping to walk around the gardens to...

Heading back to Copenhagen from Roskilde I got the 4.12 train in early rush hour. It was scheduled to run thru Copenhagen Central station and continue to the outlying stations as I was hoping to go directly to Osterport in the north end using my rail pass. However at Central Station they had announced in Danish for everyone to get off so I followed when the train emptied out.Another train came by at 4.52 as I was hoping to squeeze some of Copenhagen in on my last...