Scandinavia by Segway

Reflections from my visit to Copenhagen in July 2010...

 City tours can be dead boring. Whether it’s onboard those red double-decker ‘hop-on hop-off’ buses circling most major cities or on a group tour with a guide holding a sign or umbrella aloft - tours can make you feel like you’re back in school.

There’s often too many people, not enough time and absolutely no room for adventure. However, there is a futuristic new mode of touring that is gaining popularity around the world and in particular, in the Danish capital of Copenhagen…touring by segway.

Never heard of a segway? Well, neither had I until I signed up for a two-hour city tour and discovered that a segway is an upright, two-wheeled contraption commonly used by security guards in shopping centres and airports due to their manoeuvrability and compact size. They are cheap to run, thanks to the five individual gyroscopes controlling movement, direction and speed, and without an engine, segways are a very green-mode of transport making them ideal in Denmark, a country with a big environmental conscience.

As for sightseeing, they provide a comfortable and easy way to cover a lot of ground in a short amount of time, perfect for taking in a new city.

Now I must admit, I was a bit hesitant to step aboard as it seemed like a lazy option to walking. But once I had my two feet firmly planted on my segway I quickly changed my tune because it takes quite a bit of skill to master the art of segway-ing.

With no steering wheel, buttons, leavers or brakes the segway can be somewhat of a daunting contraption to begin with, but after a few practice laps around the car park it became as easy as, well, walking.

As the guide pointed out, if you ski you’ll be more likely to understand how to control your segway as it is all about balance. A lapse in concentration, or a sneeze, can send you hurtling along.

  

But Copenhagen is well and truly designed for segways. It is a pancake flat city lined with bicycle-ways - so we weren’t limited to where we could go. Cobblestone streets did add a little excitement to the ride but in two-hours we managed to cover over 14 kilometres of the city’s top tourist locations including the colourful canals of Nyhavn and the grandiose Amalienborg Palace - the Danish Royal Family’s winter residence. The palace is every bit as fairytale as imagined and with Princess Mary due to give birth to twins in January, there was a definite buzz to the place.

Of course, no visit to Copenhagen would be complete without a visit to the Little Mermaid. But as we rolled by the site you’d normally find the iconic statue we were disappointed to find a movie screen jutting out of the rocks streaming live images of the Little Mermaid in China, where she herself was touring.

As far as city tours go, sightseeing by segway is fun. Not once did I feel rushed or like I was being herded around like one of the flock. And thanks to an audio piece in the helmet, the guide was continuously feeding us information about all the places we glided by. He even accommodated the group’s many photographic urges, plus a few sudden deviations from the planned route to check out something of interest.

But despite it’s popularity, touring by segway is still a relatively new sight to the Danish landscape and I was consistently reminded of this by the stares, points and even photographs taken by surprised onlookers on the Stroget. In the ultimate case of irony, the tourists had become the attraction!

The only complaint I had was when the tour ended and I finally stepped off the segway back on solid ground. My ankles ached and walking had never seemed so slow.

(Plans for South America 2013 are under way. In the meantime, I am catching up on my adventures over the past few years. I hope you enjoy heading down memory lane with me...by segway!)