In the Kingdom of Denmark, the capital city of Copenhagen is a kingdom in itself – a kingdom of bicycles and world-acclaimed Danish pastry.
As you walk the streets of Copenhagen, everywhere around you you will find people riding bicycles. Over one-third of its residents use the bicycle as a means of transportation. To these ends, routes with special stoplights have been constructed for cyclists. This type of transportation is widely accepted here and has become an integral part of day-to-day activities of its residents. On the one hand, it provides for keeping in good shape, and, on the other, it demonstrates care for the environment because there are fewer motorcars on the city streets.
The city has secured such an infrastructure by setting aside significant funds for cycling routes. However, this is not where it ends. The plan is for the number of those using the bicycle as the main means of transportation to grow even higher by 2015. All this also affects those who still regard bicycle riding a mere recreation and not a means to get around and who - instead of cars - increasingly frequently use the city’s overland transport system and the subway, which some polls say is the world’s best.
In many world cities, people start their day with Danish pastry. Everyone can discern its high quality, even without prior knowledge of the culinary skills. This soft, fluffy pastry with flaked almonds, raisins, topped with sugar and stuffed with different- type of filling such as custard or jam was said to have been made quite by accident. When bakery workers in Denmark went on strike in 1850, bakery owners took on foreigners and the customers in Denmark came to prefer the pastry made by Austrian pastry masters. Later on, the strikers took over and further perfected the foreigners’ style of pastry baking. So by further enhancing the basic taste, adding eggs and butter and further upgrading their skills, they came up with what is today called Danish pastry.
When in the morning the baking pans with pastry leave the ovens in the numerous city cafes, bakeries, pastry shops and dairy restaurants, its heavenly smell permeates the city. Even if you are not a pastry lover, you will soon become fully aware as to where you are. And, wherever you choose to buy it, you cannot go wrong. It goes well with coffee, with cappuccino… Its taste sets well with everything, even with the cold weather that is so common here. It warms the hands and mouth and has an uplifting effect on one’s mood.
After this, it is easy to let go and give in to all the charms offered in this fairytale-like city on the eastern coast of Zealand that faces the Swedish coast and the city of Malme. One of the true wonders of modern world and its engineering skills is precisely the bridge connecting the two coasts. The Oresund (Swedish for sound) Bridge weighs 82,000 tons and stretches across 7,845 meters, while the height of its pylons reaches 204 meters. This makes it the longest combined two-track rail and four-lane bridge on the continent. Half-way across the bay, it goes under water to become a tunnel and 4,000 meters further on enters Denmark.
The reason for such a solution was to be found in the proximity of the Kastrup airport. Although it was opened ten years ago, it still appears unreal, probably even to those that cross it back and forth every day. Those arriving in Copenhagen by air can see this tiny line in the huge mass of turbulent water and one comes to absorb this first wonder then and there - like scrumptious bait.
 But more wonders follow. The Rozenborg Castle, the Amalienborg and Christiansborg Palaces - with their luxurious medieval architecture - lend that recognizable mark of solemnity that every European capital offers. These particular ones were once royal residences, built in top-quality materials according to highest building and designer skills. The idea was for them to last, to amaze and to conquer time. All this can be read from their walls, shapes and minute details. One passes by them slowly, in kind of an awe, because our ancestors always have some message for us. Sometimes, perhaps even the Hamletesque - "To be or not to be…"
 An excellent natural harbor, since the beginning of the 12th century it helped develop trade and crafts, thereby changing Copenhagen’s history. From a small fishing settlement, it became the regional trade center and provided the momentum to the city’s speedy advance. Today, this same harbor is again altering the city’s future because off-shore wind farms are located in its immediate vicinity. The slender, white legs emerging from the water surface that carry the elongated propeller-like blades catch even the slightest wind movement - a sight that leaves no one indifferent. They appear as if true guardians of this place, as indeed they are that. They are the guardians of the city’s ecological balance, because hey account for as much as 26 percent of the city’s electrical power.
Despite all this - the beauty and interesting points notwithstanding - what the residents of Copenhagen are perhaps most proud of and what they treasure most is a tale of Andersen’s and a monument - the Little Mermaid. This monument has toured the world via the tourists’ photographs without even moving an inch from where it was seated just over a hundred years ago by brewer Carl Jacobsen. Legend has it that the Little Mermaid would come alive after 300 years. Her fishtail would turn into legs, and she would walk away to her sweetheart, as the symbol of the city would once again become a monument to love.
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Jat Airways flies to Copenhagen four times a week. The airplanes of the Serbian national air carrier depart from Belgrade on Tuesdays at 8 a.m., on Thursdays at 8:15 a.m., on Saturdays at 7:55 a.m. and on Sundays at 2:30 p.m., while return flights are scheduled on the same days at 11:05 a.m., 11:20 a.m., 12:35 p.m. and 5:35 p.m., respectively. | | 
