Copenhagen, Denmark

Home, sweet home. It’s been a busy month wrapping up the last projects at work, selling all of my belongings and holding going-away parties, but I am now back on Canadian soil and finally have a bit of time to do some back-blogging. I’ll start with a trip to Copenhagen that I took many months ago.

I got there with a cheap flight to Hamburg (more on Hamburg in the next post!) and then a train to Denmark. My train ticket just said “direct”, so I was surprised when the train drove onto a ferry and a message on the PA system came on ordering everyone out. I emerged from below deck to see hordes of blond Danish families buying duty-free perfume and alcohol (international waters means no taxes? I’m still not sure) for twenty minutes before they closed up shop. It was pretty windy, but I managed to snap one shot of the massive offshore wind farms operating on both the German and Danish borders.

Copenhagen itself was similar to how I pictured it: pretty with lots of water (whether artificial lakes or the river) and very cycling friendly. I read one description of it from a native New Zealander who marvelled at the lack of lycra; people ride around on their upright cruisers and particularly the women look like royalty in their skirts, hair unencumbered by a helmet and backs perfectly straight.

In order to get the full-Copenhagen experience I also got myself a rental cruiser, which let me at least pretend I was a local, except when pulling over to check my map every few minutes. Here’s my sweet rental ride, camouflaged against the local graffiti:

To get myself acquainted I did a bike tour in a steady drizzle. The upside was that I was the only person who showed up so it was private tour. I saw everything from the palaces of the royal family (they have two), to Parliament, to the alternative hippy/drug colony of Christiana (below, although I was much too afraid to try to take any pictures of real locals).


Like many other European cities Copenhagen used to have ramparts and city walls dating from the 13^th century, although they were taken down in the mid-19^th century to make way for wider roads and to allow for additional entry points instead of solely through the four city gates. Here is one area which used to mark an entrance to the city:


The main royal palace wasn’t too impressive from the outside (a pretty bland building, see picture below), but they do have cool guards with huge hats who are often walking around. Just like guards everywhere in the world though - no smiling allowed!


Random Danish royalty fact: all boys in direct line to the throne are alternately called Christian and Frederick. The last king was Frederick IX although the current monarch is Queen Margaret II (no rules for princess names).

The coolest part of my trip was definitely seeing the new Opera house (built in 2004), which was financed by the shipping giant Maersk and is supposed to resemble the bridge of a battleship. Here are some shots of the outside and the inside. I like the mix of wood and glass, although the ramps in the last image remind me of some strange variation on Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach except with a huge wooden apple. Sorry to those who haven’t read the book – that last comment probably made zero sense.

Emily Fowler, a violin prodigy from my elementary school, lives in Copenhagen and is part of the symphony orchestra there. She managed to score me a ticket for one night she was playing the opera “Elektra” (by Richard Strauß). I have to admit, I didn’t understand much of it (especially with their modern interpretation) although I’d like to think that I picked up some Danish reading the sub-titles flashing across the screen for two hours. But maybe I was just in that delusional tourist state where you just think you understand a foreign language when in fact you still know nothing. After the show we had a drink in a cool tiny backstage bar with velvet walls operated by the symphony and opera staff. Emily and I reminisced about Junior High and she gave me the inside scoop on the Danes. She says that they are coffee-guzzling, sun-addicted cyclists and that she is 80% there in becoming on

I also visited the Danish WWII resistance museum, learning lots of interesting little facts, including that Denmark was one of the only countries to rescue their Jewish citizens, evacuating most of them to Sweden before they were rounded up in 1943. An estimated 116 Jews died – fewer than any other occupied country.

Another great museum was the Nationalmuseet (Danish national museum). For one thing it’s free (amazing since Scandinavia is otherwise crazy-expensive) and secondly, they have a lot of cool stuff. Unfortunately I only had a few hours and made it only part way through the Danish prehistory section with literally hundreds of flint arrow heads and axe heads as well as huge stuffed animals, Viking sacrificial boats and at least ten mummies with real hair and clothes. It was kind of creepy actually. The Danes definitely aren’t too squeamish. I only got as far as the iron age (~500 B.C.) before having to leave to catch my train, just when things were getting exciting; the Viking culture was really taking off and the looting and plundering was about to begin. But I guess that’s OK – I did go to the Viking museum in Oslo where almost 100% of the artefacts on display were stolen which I felt cheapened them somehow.

Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, so you’ll just have to take my word for it about the mummies. But, I did snap an impressive piece of Danish design - self-coat checking with locks to prevent some chump from walking off with your winter jacket.

Another highlight was Lousiana. Yes, it is a state in the deep South of the US but it’s also an amazingly good modern art museum on the coast 35 km North of Copenhagen. In addition to their impressive permanent collection, a beautiful outdoor sculpture garden overlooking the sea integrates art, sea, trees and gurgling brooks. Their special exhibit while I was there was on colour in art, which really took off in the late 1800s when coloured paints became much cheaper and more widely available. Lots of Kandinsky. I was intrigued by Emil Nolde who took up watercolours to avoid the Nazis in the late 1930s in Germany. They had labelled his art “degenerate” and watercolours didn’t carry the same risk as the smell of turpentine and suspicious tubes of oil paint which could give him away.


Gleaming Lights of the Soul, by Yayoi Kusama. I waited a good 20 minutes to get into this, but I think it was worth it. Here’s the description: “To experience this art work, please enter the white box and close the door. An unending world of lights and colours will meet you, reflected in the room’s walls, ceiling and floor.

One thing I did miss out on was Copenhagen’s claim-to-fame: the little mermaid. Shortly before I arrived she was transported off to Beijing for the Expo in the China, but I suppose that’s one less cliché to photograph and show the world on my blog.

For further entertaining reading on Copenhagen and why to visit the world’s happiest country (according to one survey) I’d recommend the following link.