Copenhagen days 3-4

Copenhagen day 3

For our (at least Jasper and mine) full day in Copenhagen we started off with a boat tour of the canals. There are several companies that do this, all situated in Nyhavn, where we walked to after breakfast.  We ended up there around 11:00 with great timing, as we were some of the last to board before the boat we chose took off.  The tours last about an hour, and each company has several boats, so seeing these sight-seeing boats going up and down the canals is normative, and I’m sure we could have found another that was almost full.

Our boat guide is punked out with great blue green hair; I don’t know if any pictures I took did her justice.  The first part of the tour was similar to the Segway tour.  We headed out of the small Nyhavn canal and then took a left, passing near the royal yacht, freighters, wooden sailing ships, and military vessels, including  Denmark’s one submarine (or at least the only one that they will admit to; the submarine program ran out of money about 10 years ago).  The guide points out Noma, one of ‘the best restaurants in the world’, across the water near the Opera house.  We pass the Royal Playhouse (as opposed to the Royal Theater), which opened seven or so years ago (first production: Hamlet, of course) and go all the way up the harbor to the little mermaid. We then turn around and take another left into the inner canal of Christianshavn.  This is a residential/military fortification built by, as usual, Christian IV.   The angled fortifications are still quite clear on a map. The ground was a bit swampy, and to encourage people to live here, Christian waived their taxes for and gave them other temporary economic privileges.  Like Nyhavn, a lot of the construction has a very Dutch feel.  We circle through the inner canal, past the many boats docked, and through the other end, where we pass under a soon to be opened pedestrian bridge.  We loop through the Fredericksholms canal around Slotsholmen, past the stock exchange with its dragontail spire, under some very low bridges, passing by more construction near the bryghus and the library.  Then back up the Nyhavn canal.

Copenhagen harbor

freighter

military vessel and marble church

across the harbor - old cannons

opera

Playhouse

Incomplete construction of new auto bridge near playhouse

Royal yacht

Maersk

Construction everywhere

Chrsitianshavn

New pedestrian bridge (looks like ship masts)

very low bridge in Slotsholmen

old stock exchange

One of H C Andersen's domiciles

Nyhavn

After the boat tour we head over to the Tivoli gardens.  It’s great that both Stockholm and Copenhagen have these full-fledged amusements parks within walking distance of the downtown.  Of course, the main part of these cities is not very large, but the Tivoli is across the street from the main railway station.  Can you imagine Millennium Park with roller coasters, restaurants, and kiddie rides?  In any case Tivoli has an old Kennywood ambiance compared to Grona Lund, which is more Great America feeling.  Tivoli is just about the oldest amusement park in the world (1840s), and it’s clear that Disney took inspiration from it. The grounds are full of well-maintained floral arrangements.  There are some band-shells and theaters, a hotel, and several restaurants.  The Park is open only half the year (summer, Halloween and Xmas), but the hotel and restaurants have secondary entrances on the street.  None of the rides look that interesting to our jaded children, and they are pretty expensive, so all we do is walk around the park - - it’s only about 2 square blocks.  We have lunch in a reproduction of a German Beer garden (schnitzels and sausages), and then we walk across the street to the train station to see if we can figure out how Jasper and I will get to the airport tomorrow.  The station is noisy and crowded.  We see where there is a ticket center, but the line is really long, so we leave the station and make our way to the last tour, one of ‘alternative’ Copenhagen.

Chinese theater

Duck houses

A 'fountain'

Danish food restaurant menu in Tivoli

Our first stop is just west of the station, in Vesterbro, on a street just south of our hotel, Istedgade.  This is where the main red light district used to be 20 years ago, but it is only about two blocks worth of street now, and it’s pretty calm at 3 pm.  At least, I wasn’t propositioned!  Like Christianshavn, the whole area has become gentrified over the last 20 years.  We pass by St Mary’s, a church that caters to the homeless, and across the street is a special Men’s Home, some kind of temporary shelter.  It’s one of the few buildings I have seen with graffiti.

Robot faced rail station

Train weather vane

double decker bike parking

Out for a walk

St Mary's with hanging sculpture

Next we go north to Vesterbrogade, passing the Mikellar bar, a nearly famous microbrewery, and the Copenhagen history museum, and then through an arch on a street called Westend. Once through the arch we are on a narrow street, and all of the rooms facing the street have large balconies.  Apparently, during the Edwardian age, each balcony had a separate prostitute.  They are all nice apartments now. 

Westend "Heaven"

Mikellar

Architecture

trompe l'oeil

Now our guide (a young Costa Rican woman who has been in Denmark for about two years) talks a bit about housing in Copenhagen.  Like Stockholm, it’s pretty tight.  Most leases don’t last a full year.  It’s too expensive for most people to buy.  Typically, some larger organization like a trade union buys a building, and then people can buy shares in the building.  The lodgers pay a monthly fee, some of which goes for maintenance, some of which goes to pay down the loan, some of which goes into an equity fund, so the lodgers are part owners of the building. Most buildings are similar to Swedish ones, with central communal courtyards.

backyard

We walk back through a playground filled with Danish kids running around.  Outdoor play is greatly encouraged here, and many schools have an informal program of udeskole, where classes are given outside.  This little park used to be the site of the old archery club.

From the park we head south into Kodbyen.  This is the old meatpacking district, but now is full of hipster restaurants.  

From here we get on the metro, go up to Norreport, transfer to another train, and then come out in Christianshavn.  The public transportation system is complex, and the maps, more so, so I can’t really tell you if we took the metro, S-train or whatever.  We walk along the canal a bit after looking at some statues of Greenlanders.  Lots of Inuit come to the square to drink.  We pass the naval history museum, and eventually we end up in Christiana. 

street art near construction. note taco truck!

This is an autonomous free town within the confines of the city.  Squatters took over an old military base in the early 70’s, and it has gone through periods of differing amounts of toleration from the government ever since.  In the mid 00’s Copenhagen released the land to the State.  People who live there pay only for electricity and water now; other than that I think it is in a state of semi-anarchy. Now the Christiana residents are in the process of buying the land. There is a big marijuana market, and cameras are not allowed.  Over the years there have been issues with hard drugs and drug gangs, but while we were there everything seemed quite peaceful.  Many Danes were walking about, most clearly only visiting (there are only about 1000 full time residents).  The houses have all been built by the residents, although I have no idea how they moved the materials in, since there are no cars or roads, just deer paths.

Navel museum

Christianshavn

We wander through the enclave for a while, and that’s the end of the tour.  We stop and rest for a while, and start talking to a young Dane.  He is a bricklayer, and travelled in the US for a while.  He did not like the ‘tip’ culture, and felt it was demeaning.  Waiters in Denmark (and bricklayers too, for that matter), have to go to school and get trained for their jobs, and so they should be paid a good wage.  I don’t disagree, but I think the attentiveness of wait staff is generally a lot higher in the US because they are dependent on tips to make a living.  He corrals a couple of his Danish friends, and we have a good conversation over a large range of topics.  Then it’s time to go.  We walk through Cristiana, past the fabulous Church of Our Savior with a counterclockwise spire, all the way to Langebrogade.

We cross the bridge, and walk up the main drag, Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard, pass the Glyptotek (an art museum), go around the back of Tivoli, and head to the railway station.  I go to the ticketing area, but it is an hour wait to talk to someone.  I try one of the ticket machines, and I succeed in getting two train tickets to airport.  However, when I look at the tickets, it shows they are only good for about two hours.  I go the information booth (a 5 minute wait) to find out what I can do with these tickets “Oh, I can exchange them at the ticket counter….it will only be an hour+ wait).  Luckily, each ticket only costs about $5, so the government has one on me.

Glyptotek

Royal theater

On our way home we check out Mikellar (as did some of our other tour participants), but they don’t really have any food.  We rest a bit in the hotel and then head to the meat market, where we go to War Pigs - - everywhere else is too full.  This is a brew bub with Texas barbecue, and is a partnership between Three Floyds (in Indiana) and mikellar.  As we stand in line for food, they run out of hot links and special links, so we end up with pulled pork, brisket, ribs, mac and cheese and cole slaw.  The pulled pork is about average, but the brisket is excellent.  Meanwhile, I got three beers for me and the boys, a coffee stout for Lucas, a Helles lager for Jasper, and a Rye beer for myself.  Yum.  After dinner, we walk back to our hotel (two blocks away), but first stop in Paradis ice cream, where I get licorice.  There are a few of these in Los Angeles, so I encourage anyone who has read this far to go!

beer menu

paradis ice cream

Copenhagen Day 4

There is a bit of time this morning after breakfast before we need to go, so after my shot of Gammel Dansk, Lucas and I go the nearby Copenhagen museum.  We really wanted to see the exhibit of material from the excavation of the circle line metro.  It’s interesting, but the lay out of the exhibit is not as good as it could be (poor sight lines, and a lot of the smaller material is far away and hard to see).  Almost everything that they have dug up is junk; the type of stuff Lucas would throw away in his dig: small broken bits of pottery, bones, etc.  However, they do have examples of clothes, money, tools, most from the last few centuries.  Copenhagen has only been an appreciable city for 600 or so years, and it has had a lot of renovation in the interim; there isn’t much that hasn’t already been found.  Other exhibits in the museum are about immigrants to Denmark, a lot of which is in Danish. One thing I found interesting is that the museum was one the headquarters of the shooting club, and the rich and powerful would commission painters to paint them special targets – there seals, or items that represented their fortunes.  The museum has a large collection of these old targets on their walls, many with large bullet holes in them.

Back at the hotel, we finish packing, and Lucas and Cindy accompany us to the train station.  The streets are a bit empty, because today is the Copenhagen Gay Pride Parade (which runs right past our hotel about two hours after we leave, Cindy and Lucas watch from the hotel lobby).

We get on the train- - there are multiple trains going to the airport, but we get on an express, of which there is one about every 20 minutes.  The airport is crowded and confusing, but we figure out how to print our boarding passes, and then we go through about three layers of security before we get to our gate, although we have a last Danish snack first.  You can’t actually sit at the gate - - there is a big roller wall in front of it.  About an hour before the flight, the air staff come and roll the wall out of the way, and check your boarding pass - - of course the system goes out just before we are allowed in, so we have about 30 minutes of sitting on the floor before we are allowed in.  The plane leaves about an hour late, but makes up the time by the time we arrive.