Copenhagen is another world-class city full of history and beauty. Seven days in Copenhagen and a few surrounding areas was enough time to do most everything we planned. This was our last stop in Europe on this 3.5 month wandering in Europe. I think we’ve seen our fill of old churches for awhile and it will be nice to be back in the US for a month to see friends and family, to eat Mexican Food and prepare for the next trip: Nepal and some other places in that part of the world.
Urban House Hostel
Denmark is not cheap, so to save some money on lodging, we stayed in the Urban House, a hostel. But not just any hostel mind you At the front desk they have a framed award from Tripadvisor as the 10th best large hostel in the world in 2017. OK then. We had a small room with a bed and private bathroom. No chair or even space for a chair, just enough room for a bed pretty much. Susie came down with Covid on the third day, but with relatively minor so she got to enjoy the small room for several days in isolation as I went to our planned activities. No Covid for me, I assume because I already had Covid in June.
We/I did a lot, so the casual reader might want to just look at a few pictures and move on…
Tivoli Gardens
A city block that opened as an amusement parkin 1843. Some buildings still in use date from the 1870’s. Originally outside the city, it is now right next to Copenhagen Main train station. Tivoli was a reference point for Walt Disney while he dreamed up Disneyland. It remains a nice mixture of beautiful gardens, performance stages, rides and fair food.
Neanderthal stuff
An excellent Neaderthal exhibit at the Natural History Museum, including The Lehringen spear – one of the world’s best preserved wooden spears used for hunting 120.000 years ago and found in the chest cavity of a forest elephant. Hand tools, skeletons of Woolly mammoth and cave bears and other Neanderthal things, as well as some educated guesses on what they looked like and how their communities worked.
Viking stuff
The National Museum has a great display of artifacts and history of the Viking age. Hordes of coins and other treasures, jewelry, broaches, swords, a description of conquests. Everything you would expect from a museum in Denmark about Vikings.
I also visited the 5 Vikings Ships museum, dedicated to the restoration and the learnings from raising 5 ships that were filled with rocks and purposely sunk in the 11th century in the Roskilde fiord to protect the then-capital city of Roskilde from attack. The ships were discovered and raised in the 1960’s. Many years in the process of preservation and reconstruction. Based on the learnings, there is now an adjacent boat yard that builds Viking ships using the same techniques, an outdoor area to play Viking games and other hands-on activities.
On the same day I went to an outdoor recreation of past Danish life called Land of Legends. Due to some train cancellations, I was only there for the last hour, so all the costumed people and demonstrations were done for the day. Dang. I did enjoy the Viking king’s hall, built to scale of one that originally existed about 2 miles from the park.
Castle and Royal stuff
Two castles on the agenda: Rosenborg Castle, home to royalty for many years and where the Danish Crown jewels are kept. The castle also had some secret passageways, a room with hidden pipes to bring music up from the orchestra playing in the room below (first surround sound system?) and my favorite, a 17th century practical joke: “the trouser watering chair”. And a treasury in the basement with the Danish crown jewels.
Frederiksborg Castle, an hour outside of Copenhagen. Built in the 17th century, mostly destroyed in a 1859 fire, it was restored in the late 1800’s and has served as the Danish National HIstory museum since then.
It is full of ornate rooms, artwork, furnishings and history of Danish royalty. I did an audio tour but eventually gave up trying to remember all their names and just enjoyed the castle.
The castle is also home to the The Compenius Organ. The organ is compact, though has 1001 pipes, all wooden. It was built in 1610, it sits now in the same spot in the castle that it occupied in I timed the visit to see the weekly 30-minute concert. The organ has hand pump bellows operated from the back side, so in addition to an organist, a bellowist (?) pulls the four ropes connected to the bellows as needed.
Frederksborg is also home to the Carl Bloch paintings that are widely referenced in our church. Oddly, the Bloch paintings are all crowed on the walls (floor to ceiling) of a small dark room (the king’s private oratory) just off of the castle’s chapel balcony. Most tourists just walk through the room without a second look.
Churchy stuff
I climbed the tower of the Church of Our Savior, which is unique with the last 100 steps or so in the open that corkscrew to the top. Not for the faint of heart.
The Church of our Lady, where Torvaldsen’s Christus statue resides, along with his statues of the 12 apostles. Not only is the statue stunning, but the simple setting and focus on the statue is unique.
The Round Tower. This is a unique circular tower where the inside is a wide upward-spiraling path with a small central column. The tower is attached to a church, but the upper floors are accessed from the tower and were used for secular purposes.
I visited a couple of churches where distant ancestors were baptized in the early 1700’s Church of the Holy Ghost (Helligåndskirken) and Sankt Nikolaj Kirke, which has since been converted into an art performance studio. Both were close when I was in the area so I only have pictures of the outsides, and the other was not open when I was there so just some photos of the outside.
Frederik’s church, a project started in the 1700, which ran out of money part way through and sat as ruins for 150 years. It was eventually completed in 1894 under some shady financial dealings and tight budget, using sandstone instead of marble. The dome is one of the largest in Europe.
And lastly, a more recent addition to Copenhagen a temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints. It was designed to fit in well to the surrounding neighborhood
A Canal boat tour on a windy, chilly afternoon.
The required visit to the Little Mermaid statue
Walking around the earthen wall and bastions of Kastellet, a former fort.
Walking the length of Stroget Street, claimed to be the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe. At 3.2 km in length, it could be true. No photo, it looks like pretty much every other shopping street in Europe, just longer….
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