Wanderung 34

Voyage to the Emerald Isle

April - May 2018


 

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Sunday May 13, 2018: Copenhagen, Denmark, Day 4

Amelienborg Palace

We expected buses to run less often as it was Sunday, but we didn't expect the whole bus network of Copenhagen to fail completely! We waited 20 minutes at the 3A bus stop, then 20 minutes at the stop for a different line, and then where saw some buses running down the next street, they turned out to be the completely WRONG buses for those bus stops. And to top it all off, we couldn't even get any of the WRONG buses to stop and pick us up! Argh!

We finally found out that there was a marathon race in Copenhagen that morning and most of the streets in the old section had been closed off. As a result, the buses where completely stopped on most routes and the wrong buses were running at unpredictable times on unpredictable streets. That made the bus system useless for getting around. Frustrated, we walked over to the nearest subway station and took the subway to a stop as close to the Amelienborg Palace as we could get and walked over to it. Back on the Zuiderdam, port lecturer Ian had told us that the changing of the guard was at 11 o'clock, but he was wrong as we learned that the guard change was scheduled for 12 o'clock.

Since we were early, we filled in the extra hour by visiting the museum tucked into the second floor of one of the four main palace buildings. The exhibits included some of the room furnishings used by previous kings and queens of Denmark, plus a lot of pictures of royal family members. A miscellaneous assortment of dinnerware and decorations such as huge porcelain vases with beautiful pictures baked on their glazed surfaces rounded out the museum's contents.

We popped back outside the museum right before Noon for the changing of the guard, which was on a much smaller scale than the one at England's Buckingham Palace, and completely silent except for the shouted commands of the officer in charge. Still, the soldiers were dressed in regalia from the old days with large, bearskin shakoes on their heads and glittering accoutrements on their brilliant, spotless uniforms that mimic very closely the British version of the same ceremony.

Nyhavn

Once the ceremony was over, we wandered over to Nyhavn, the "New Harbor" built back in the 1600s that by now is a very old harbor with nice old houses lining its banks. We were all getting hungry as it was now well past Noon, but the Nyhavn restaurants were hideously expensive so we settled for some large ice cream cones to stave off hunger, and then started walking back across the old town area to Rosenberg Castle, which contains the Crown Jewels of Denmark. While crossing one of the streets we encountered the marathon runners, the reason for our problem with the buses in the morning.

Along the way we found a pleasant bar/restaurant on a side street and paused there for a lunch, partly because we were really hungry and partly because we had already been on our feet for 3 hours and needed to sit for a while. Continuing on after lunch, we approached the half-moat on one side of the Rosenberg Castle from the adjacent park. There we watched Danes taking full advantage of the warm, sunny day just like the citizens of Hamburg, Germany, do, which means lying on the grass out in the sunshine and enjoy the warmth.

Rosenberg Castle

When we purchased tickets and entered the castle, we were kind of shooed in to join an English-speaking tour group, but they turned out to be some kind of organized tour from England, possibly a Trafalgar tour. We stayed with them for a while as the guide was explaining some interesting facts about the official Royal crown that is stored in the castle, as well as the official thrones in the large, open room on the third floor. Having given up absolute power to the Parliament that now holds the real government power in Denmark, the king or queen never wears the old crown nor sits in that old throne because they are the concrete symbols of an absolute monarchy. When a king or queen dies, however, the crown is placed on their coffin when they lie in state prior to burial as a sign of respect. Who knew?

On the first and second floors of Rosenberg Castle, the furnishings from its last use as an official Royal castle are preserved in situ. They were quite pretty, as you might expect, but I enjoyed the most things like the extremely complicated clock that was about 6 feet tall and clearly showed other info by indicators on its sides. I also enjoyed the huge, wooden music box that still plays tunes every half an hour or so, and the beautiful inlaid wood designs of much of the furniture.


 

The lowest point of our castle tour was also the highest point, because the Crown Jewels were stored in a huge, bank-vault-like set of rooms in the basement of the castle. Entrance and exit are strictly controlled, and armed military guards in camouflage uniforms with very practical automatic rifles are patrolling outside.

Inside the vault is a quite impressive set of bright, shiny, precious objects. Many of them are gold and silver, of course, and although the lighting is quite dim they do gleam quite nicely. The royal crowns are there also, in two different sizes that look like literally like a King-sized one and a Queen-sized one.


 

We took a last selfie at Rosenborg castle and then collapsed on a bench hoping for a bus to take us to the nearest subway station. But alas, we again had to walk to the nearest subway station as the Copenhagen bus system was still kaput, and took a subway train to the station closest to our apartment. We stopped to rest and have a beer, because once again we had to hoof it all the way back home. We had a nice day and saw some of the main tourist attractions of Copenhagen, but we really had to walk a LOT more than we had expected and were footsore and weary when we turned in for the night.



Copyright 2018 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt


 

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