With the students coming back in the next few days (gulp), we decided to take one last holiday piggybacked on Dan’s latest business trip. Good thing, too, because København is very expensive!
Dan got a head start and spent a few days in a southern suburb, Præstø, with his colleagues. Before I arrived, he threw caution to the northern wind and had Mexican food. We met up on Thursday morning and proceeded to spend the rest of the day taking in our first impressions of København, Denmark, and Scandinavia. We first took a canal boat tour to get the lay of the land and water and saw many cool buildings from the water. We invested in the 72 hour cOPENhagen card which got us free access into many museums and attractions. It was a really good deal as it gave us access to the public transportation system, too. With the card, we gained free entry into Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Maritime Museum at Kronborg Slot, Rosenborg Slot, Tivoli Gardens, the Zoo, and got a free book at the National Museum (which is free entry anyway). Some highlights from the trip:
We really enjoyed the modern art at Louisiana. It has been a while since we have been to a modern art museum, but this one featured a lot of Danish artists and now more international artists, too. We both were particularly impressed with the Sophie Calle exhibit, Take Care of Yourself, and her other pieces. There was a cool sculpture garden overlooking the sound and Sweden where we recognized a familiar artist, Joan Miro, whom we admired last year in Barcelona.
Henry Moore at the Louisiana
Kronborg Castle is better known to the world as Hamlet’s castle. You know, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, the indecisive one? Shakespeare said he lived at Elsinore Castle or Helsingør in Danish. It was amazing to learn so much history about this castle, Danish kings of yore, and some of the country’s history at this castle. Even though the inside is quite bare, there are some pretty impressive tapestries and rooms.
Overlooking the courtyard and the sound of Kronborg/Elsinore Castle
The Round Tower was built as a center for scholarship and included a church, library, and observatory. It is a long windy stairless climb to the top, but then we were rewarded with some great views of the copper rooftops of the city.
Many copper rooftops in Copenhagen
Rosenborg Slot is not nearly as bare as Kronborg and gave us a more complete account of some of the royal lives. It is also the current treasury where the crown jewels are held. The crowns and jewels are very impressive indeed. Wouldn’t it be nice to try them on just for a minute?
The Queen's crown and the Crown of Absolute Monarchy
The Danish Resistance Museum shows how the Danish survived WWII. Apparently, their nonviolent resistance to the Nazis is upheld as one of the few examples in international history of a success story. This free museum wasn’t even mentioned in any of our guidebooks but was well done and worth our time there.
Green=Nazi occupied, Red=Axis allies occupied, Blue=Fighting the Nazis
The Ice Bar is a tourist trap, but we had a great time there. Almost entirely made of ice, we enjoyed our drinks in glasses made of ice while sitting on seats made of ice. We could only stand to be in there for 45 minutes, but it was fun to be there and act silly making ice jokes.
Icy Coolness at the Ice Bar
The National Museum was our last stop, and we only squeezed in an hour there. But seeing the impressive exhibits on early Danish people up to the Vikings was fascinating and worth our time.
Early Danish lur horns from the Bronze Age, sacred musical instruments
Although we weren’t overly impressed with the food, we did enjoy a couple of Danish delicacies. First, the pastry: we call it a “Danish” since it was popularized by them but actually the Danes call it a “Viennese” since the flaky bread was learned from Viennese bakers. One can only hope that the Viennese call these Brazilians or something, but that is unfortunately not the case. Second, the smørrebrød brings a new appreciation for rye bread and pickled herring, neither of which tempted me previously. Third, we did as the Danes do and grabbed a hot dog at a polse stand. Completely enjoyable experience and as far as I am concerned, the correct dog to bread ratio.
Downing dogs in Denmark
Other fun things we saw/did:
Tivoli is much like any other amusement park, although we did get to see a Danish pantomime. Unlike the British panto, the performers are actually silent. Also unlike the British panto, our fairy tale does not end happily.
Danish Panto, the silent variety
Dan enjoying the Demon roller coaster at Tivoli
We went to the free city of Christiana aka hippyville where the weed grows copiously and everyone is into free love and no rules. We looked around for 20 minutes, shrugged, and said to ourselves, “We lived in San Francisco for 3 years, nothing new here.”
The rules of Christiana
Carlsberg Brewery is no longer based in København, but we saw the awesome elephant gates and conjured positive vibes that they would send some business to Dan’s company.
Elephant gates at Carlsberg Brewery
Copenhagen Zoo is apparently a 5 star tourist attraction. It was free with the magic card, so we took a quick whirl around. Our favorites were the elephants, red pandas, kangaroos, tapirs, penguins, prairie dogs, and of course, the Nordic animals like wolves and polar bears.
The most Nordic of Nordic animals at the zoo
We had a really nice time there, although we really only did the touristy stuff. Besides those activities, we weren’t really sure what the locals did there. Unlike many other cities that have very clear personalities and draw us back for multiple visits, Copenhagen didn’t give me a good sense of what it was about or make me want to visit again anytime soon. It also made me question whether I want to visit Stockholm (expensive!) or Oslo (even more expensive!) anytime soon. Not to say that we didn’t have a wonderful time, but we may prioritize it lower than other places we still want to explore. At least for the next few weeks, our feet are planted on the ground.
