Berlin & Copenhagen
April 2007
Part 3: Copenhagen
April 6th-7th (days 8-9): Copenhagen
Originally this was going to be a trip to Berlin and Prague, but we went to Copenhagen instead of Prague because my current car isn't insured in Czechya. Copenhagen turned out to have a lot to offer, so no regrets! I'd never been to Denmark before, so it's a new country on my
list.
We were here during Easter Weekend, which meant there was little traffic and we could use the car to get around town and park it pretty much anywhere, very handy. Also, as I always suspected, it turns out I can read Danish pretty well because I learned Swedish, and that was also very handy.
Rådhus
Rådhuset, Copenhagen's town hall, was built 1892-1905 and is one of its major landmarks. The tower is 105m high.
Rundetårn
Rundetårn, the Round Tower, was built 1637-1642 as a platform to observe the stars. Its 35m high roof is reached through a wide corridor that circles upwards around the axis of the tower 7 times and is big enough for a horse and carriage. Nowadays its a lookout for tourists. Copenhagen isn't so nice from above, but seeing the Swedish coastline and the famous Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden was cool.
Rosenborg
Rosenborg Slot is a pretty castle in Dutch renaissance style. It was built in 1606 as a residence for king Christian IV.
My city map indicated a bunch of small streets just north of Rosenborg, so I went to check them out on good fortune and discovered a lovely area full of colourful houses. Copenhagen generally seems like a very nice place to live.
Marmorkirken
My guide book had few good things to say about Marmorkirken (the Marble Church), and I only checked it out because it was on my way after the detour through the small streets, and guess what: it turned out to be the most beautiful monument I saw on this whole trip. I drove by it again the next morning just to take some more pictures with the sun now shining on its façade.
The Marble Church, officially called Frederiks Kirke, was built 1749-1894. Its dome is 31m wide.
With my l33t Danish skillz I knew the text above the entrance, "Herrens ord bliver evindelig", to be a verse from the bible that means "The Lord's word remains for eternity". This touched my heathen soul because that very same verse (but in German) is sung loudly as the climax of my favourite piece of classical music, the 2nd part of Brahm's Deutsches Requiem ("Den alles Grass es ist wie Fleisch").
The interior of the church is less pompous than the exterior, but equally beautiful.
Near the Marble Church lies Amalienborg, a group of four identical palaces around a square. This has been the residence of the Danish royal family since 1794.
Nyhavn
Nyhavn is a short canal into the city which used to be a sailors' hangout but was transformed into a picturesque touristy place a few decades ago. The simple combination of colourful houses and sailing boats looks very sweet indeed, especially in the sunlight.
Christiansborg
The castle Christiansborg was built 1907-1928 and houses the royal reception rooms, the Danish parliament and the office of the prime minister. Unfortunately its 106m high tower was being restaurated, but I was still impressed by the architecture and the brown-grey granite façades.
This castle is actually the fifth one built on this exact same spot. The first one was built by Bishop Absalon in 1176 and destroyed by the Hanseatic League in 1369. Its successor was demolished in 1731, and fires ruined the next two castles in 1794 and 1884. While laying foundations for the current castle, the remains of the first two castles were uncovered. You can visit these old ruins - which mostly lie under the current courtyard - and it's a pretty cool exhibition, especially as you can still trace most of the first castle wall (a big circle).
I also did a tour of the royal reception rooms, where the king and queen of Denmark receive foreign leaders and other guests. The entrance hall has six pillars in the shape of bearded giants who seem to be struggling with the weight on their shoulders, each in a somewhat different way, very cool!
Unfortunately photography wasn't allowed during the actual tour. Most of it was rather boring as the palace halls look just like those in any other European palace, but then we entered the banquet hall, big enough to seat and feed 400 guests, and here the walls were decorated with really cool modern tapestries. These were designed by the Danish artist Bjørn Nørgaard and depict the history of Denmark. Here's a pic I found on the web of the hall and of two of those tapestries, you can view the rest
here.
Next to Frederiksborg stands Børsen, the old stock exchange. It was built in the first half of the 17th century and features a spire composed of four dragons and their intertwined tails. On top of the spire are three crowns representing Denmark, Sweden and Norway, the three nations trading here.
Modern architecture
Copenhagen has two eye-catching modern buildings by the water, but neither of them looks all that good.
The mermaid with legs
We really weren't going to walk into this tourist trap, but in the evening we decided to go for a walk around the star-shaped fort Kastellet and that's where the statue of Den Lille Havfrue
(the Little Mermaid) is located, so we had a look. It turns out she's been put right opposite the harbour, rather than in a picturesque spot, which provides a funny contrast.
Strangely, this mermaid has two legs with knees and everything. It's a mistery how she became a touristic highlight. At least Manneken Pis is
funny!
Grundtvigs Kirke
This church was built 1921-1940 in the Bispebjerg neighbourhood. It's quite far from the center and therefore not mentioned in any city guides, but I happened to find out about it on the internet, and had programmed its location in my GPS. On the second morning while Lotte went to some galleries I took the car and set out to find it, and it was totally worth the ride, what a unique monument!
The sun was facing the wrong way for good pictures of the façade (you should visit in the afternoon for good pictures), but perhaps that made it seem even more dominant compared to the surrounding houses. It's located in a very nice residential area - like so many in Kopenhagen - and the church is built from the exact same materials as the houses. The tower, which seems like a gigantic church organ, is 49m high.
Christiania
Christiania is a neighbourhood within Copenhagen that is partially self-ruling and calls itself a freetown. It was founded in 1971 when squatters and hippies moved into some recently abandoned military buildings, and has upheld an ideology of collective ownership and self-governance. It became famous as one of the few places in the world where hash and weed could be sold openly until the Danish government put an end to that in 2004.
I was much interested in seeing how this social experiment is going, and was immediately disappointed. The place looks like a slum rather than like an idealistic community, and the main economic activity seems to be selling stuff to tourists. If you're gonna present yourself as an alternative to mainstream society, you could at least clean up your garbage and fix broken windows. I had a good time cracking Cartmanesque hippie jokes to Lotte (a recent South Park convert!), but after reading about
Christiania's difficult history just now I feel my initial judgement was too harsh.
Along the waterfront, enterprising Christianians have built some very nicely designed wooden houses.
Near Christiania stands the Vor Frelsers Kirke, which has a cool spiraling spire. I'd have loved to climb it but the church was closed for restoration.
Hotel
We stayed in hotel Cab Inn Scandinavia, which has tiny but clean and modern rooms which guests can transform into a single, twin, double or triple room at will.
Glyptotek
The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek was founded by the owner of the brewery of what is most unlikely the best beer in the world. Glyptotek means sculpture collection, but that's just a fraction of what this impressive museum has to offer. There are also collections of ancient artefacts from Egyptian to Roman times, as well as a nice collection of 19th century paintings.
The Egyptian collection is surprisingly big - how did such a small country get its hands on all that? - but having visited the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, this was hardly interesting. I was delighted to see the following two statues though, both Sumerian, the only culture as ancient as Egypt's.
There were also several well-preserved Assyrian reliefs from the 9th century BC palace of Assurnasirpal II in Nimrud.
To my surprise, I encountered animal reliefs from the Ishtar gate and processional way of Babylon again (from the 6th century BC; cfr.
part 2). I got better detail pictures here than in Berlin.
Then an oft forgotten culture: the Etruscans, the Italian contemporaries of the ancient Greeks. These people had the nice habit of putting statues of themselves lying on top of their sarcophagi - a brilliant idea.
There was a large and interesting collection of Greek vases, but due to the lighting I couldn't get good pictures of those. So, on to Roman times. I've visited the funerary towers of Palmyra (a Roman city in present-day Syria) during my Middle East trip (report
here). The Palmyrans put their coffins in stone racks and sealed the opening with a square block on which the dead were depicted - another interesting way to commemorate the dead.
The following sarcophagus was found in Rome itself and dates from about 200 AD. It depicts Dionysos and Ariadne and is the most beautiful sarcophagus I've seen.
Finally, some pictures from the section with 19th century art.
