September 16th, 2008: Copenhagen, Denmark
Bob: After breakfast but before we left for the morning, we backed up pictures and cleared the chips inside our three cameras so that we would be able to take as many pictures of Copenhagen as we wished. Since Christianshavn was relatively close to the old town center of Copenhagen, which was the area we really wished to see, we decided to simply walk to the Tivoli and then take either Rick Steve's suggested walk or the walking tour outlined on the tourist map of downtown Copenhagen. The sky was mostly cloudy and grey, but occasionally the sun would peek through a break in the clouds and it wasn't raining, so we had a nice walk over to the town hall across the street from the old Tivoli amusement park that we had visited with our boys many, many years ago. |
Monika: After a breakfast of rolls with frikadelle, we were off to see Copenhagen. We had studied Rick Steve's suggestions and also a walking tour suggested by the Copenhagen Bureau of Commerce and decided to combine the two. Looking at the map, we decided that taking the bridge closest to our abode would get us quickly to the townhall square across from the Tivoli, the starting point of the walking tour. We had decided to skip the Tivoli this time, and instead just enjoy the city and maybe take in a palace since Copenhagen boasts several of those. |
Bob: We stood in the big open square on one side of the town hall and checked the sites specified by Rick Steve's guide. Sure enough, we found the statue of Hans Christian Andersen, the SAS building with the gold-plated girls in the clock tower, and the really ugly bus station. Steve had also mentioned a "Tiger" discount store, and as we needed water bottles, nail clippers, writing paper, and envelopes, we stopped in there for some low-cost shopping. Besides the items on our shopping list, we of course also found some simple toys for our granddaughters, but that's only to be expected as we are doting grandparents. |
Monika: Starting at the rather imposing city hall we looked in all directions. There was the statue of Hans Christian Anderson across from the Tivoli. An obliging Japenese tourist took our "We are here" picture and we reciprocated taking theirs. Across the street from one side of city hall was an impressive looking hotel, on the other side office buildings with names of the companies all over the building. One of the buildings had golden weather girls (one with a bike, the other an umbrella) at the top. They indicated the weather was changeable...news flash in Copenhagen. A little on was a store Rick Steve's guide had recommended, "Tigers", a dollar type store, only everything cost 10 or 20 Krone. Bob wanted in particular a card to send to Phyllis. We found just the thing, cards in envelopes with a Van Gogh picture in front. I could have spend a lot more money there. They really had nifty stuff. But two things stopped me: we had to carry everything back and our cash flow was getting low. Oh well, we still managed to spend 90 Krone, but 10 Krone for two 16 ounce water bottles - with water and ice tea - was an especially wise investment. |
Bob: Toting our purchases, we backtracked across the square and started our walking tour in earnest, deciding to use the side street recommended by the Copenhagen map makers, who we figured, or at least hoped, were local folks. As a result, we had a quiet walk down a much less commercialized but much more natural part of Copenhagen. At the Nytorv plaza, we paused to look at the large fountain that our guide mentioned before continuing on to the main pedestrian mall and shopping drag called the Stroget. We window shopped as we walked along the Stroget, and it was fortunate that we had made our purchases back at the Tiger store because the boutiques lining the Stroget were anything but cheap. We ended up at Kongens Nytorv, a large open plaza with a perfectly round flower garden in the center surrounding a prototypical bronze "man on a horse" type of statue. We both thought the buildings surrounding the plaza were particularly attractive, and since the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds for a while we could take some nice pictures. |
Monika: From the Tiger store we started wandering through the town. From narrow streets with old houses, we would find ourselves in big squares with fountains and/or statues. We both were just knipsing away. I was trying to take panoramic pictures whenever possible and Bob was using and getting used to his new camera. |
Bob: Just across the street was "Nyhavn", the "new harbor" back in the 1700s, that is. Three hundred years later it still functions as a boat harbor, but now only for tourist boats or large sailing yachts. The houses on either side of the Nyhavn also looked much older than most of the rest of the old town section of Copenhagen. In particular, I saw some of those really narrow old houses that I associate with the 1600s or 1700s. |
Monika: The Nyhaven section was especially picturesque. A small canal leading to the main waterway with old boats moored on either side and colorful old houses begging to have their picture taken. We both succumbed to the call. |
Bob: All of a sudden a platoon of palace guards with those huge furry shakoes on their heads came marching by, and we hustled to try to catch up with them to get some pictures. They were marching quite steadily while we kept stopping to take more pictures of pretty buildings, so we didn't catch up to them until they had arrived in the Amalienborg Palace. There they finally stopped to actually arrange the changing of the guard, and we managed to get some pictures!
We enjoyed eating lunch near the playground where we could hear and watch the youngsters climbing all over the dragons and especially the big bronze egg that was sitting in the middle of the playground. Amazing how much fun kids can have with such simple, no-frills equipment! After lunch we also wandered around looking at some of the many odd and interesting sculptures scattered about hither and yon in the park, and then finally continued on our way to Rosenberg Castle proper. |
Monika: While I visited a "necessary" (or "loo" as the English say nowadays) for 2 Krone (50 cents), Bob saw the guard march by for the changing of the guard at Amelionborg palace, the official residence of the queen. We rushed after them and were in time to watch the actual, official changing of the guard. Police were keeping us tourists at a distance, but we still managed to get some pictures.
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Bob: The visit to Rosenberg Castle had two major stages: first visiting many rooms full of old royal furniture, personal effects, paintings, and tapestries on the upper three floors, and then visiting the precious possessions up to and including the crown jewels in the basement. The first two floors were really a wonderland of antique furniture, unique and graceful artifacts of all kinds, and very impressive paintings and wall decorations. The third floor was a huge audience chamber with a pair of thrones at one end and a smaller throne at the other. Clearly that big formal hall had been used for formal occasions by the Danish royalty over a long period of time, and for all I know it is still used occasionally. |
Monika: Much refreshed we were ready for a palace. I was rather pleased that they had cheaper entrance for seniors so our cash was not completely gone. Rosenberg palace was in use from about 1650 to 1750 by four generations of Fredericks or Christians. After that, the next Frederick had a new palace built (Fredericksborg), and I guess a Christian had a Christiansborg built. How the current royal palace, Amalienborg, fits into this I don't know. In any case, after the court moved to Fredericksborg, Rosenberg was used for some ceremonial occasions and as a storehouse for heirlooms they wanted to keep but not clutter up the living quarters --- everyone should have a spare castle to store their junk, the mind boggles to think how much more stuff we could keep. In any case, we saw three stories of royal rooms filled with beautiful tapestry, fancy paintings - I especially enjoyed the rather raunchy paintings on the ceiling of the royal bedroom - and of course knick-knacks. There were also beautiful cabinets and intricate clocks but above all lots of paintings of royal personages. In the throne room, three silver lions guarded the throne. Bob had bought a photography license, so his new camera got a good workout. |
Bob: In the basement we first wandered around two rooms filled with beautiful artifacts like miniature ships, chess sets, and drinking cups made out of ivory, amber, silver, and gold. It was actually pretty overwhelming. Some of the swords, for example, had hilts that were so completely encrusted with precious jewels that they would have cut your hand to ribbons if you had ever actually tried to use the things. Clearly they were for ceremonial purposes only, but some of the other furniture, jewelry boxes, and so forth were not only beautiful but quite functional. The coup de gras was the royal treasury. Now that had an awful lot of gold and precious stones involved, which is I'm sure the reason the armed guards were patrolling out front. Not only that, but the actual crown jewels were in locked cases in rooms that actually were a huge bank vault complete with those big bank vault doors that I'm sure they close at night. The crown jewels including several beautiful gold crowns, an orb and scepter and lots more besides, but it was darn difficult making a decent picture of it with the crowds and the low light conditions. |
Monika: Included in the entrance fee was entrance to the royal treasury. The first room had beautiful carvings our of ivory and amber. There really was some gorgeous stuff, and I thoroughly enjoyed looking carefully at all the pieces. It was almost overwhelming. Another room held other beautiful things. One room of to the side held two planetary clocks by the Danish astronomer Romen who is said to have calculated the speed of light in 1680. (How did he do that with the crude instruments available at that time?) To get to the crown jewels, you had to go down through a thick vault like door. There were the crowns and the scepter and orb and crown jewelry. Everything beautiful. After exiting through another vault door, we came out into a drizzle. |
Bob: When we finally got out it was raining, so we called it quits for the day and walked home. We filled in the afternoon by returning to the library to use the free WiFi there and then had dinner and settled in to do some journal-writing and crostic-solving before turning in for the night. |
Monika: We decided to call it a day. We had three clicks left on our two zone ticket. This left us with three options: We could both take the metro back, using two clicks and buy a single ticket tomorrow morning, we could have one person take the metro and the other walk, or we could both walk and have (oh horrors) one click left on our ticket after we use it tomorrow morning. Since we both did not feel too tired, we decided on option three and had a nice, even if wet, walk home. We just stopped at a grocery store to buy a liter of Liebfraumilch to smuggle on board the ship tomorrow. I also took a picture of the statues that were in the square by the Christianshavn S-Tog station that I had admired each time we walked by.
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