copenhagen, 2007

So neither of us had ever been to Scandinavia, and we were curious. Obviously a lot of stuff comes from Scandinavia - stuff that has had a huge impact upon our culture. Bits of the English language from Old Norse, for example. The Vikings who brought it to Britain. Ikea. Dynamite. Hans Christian Andersen. The Nobel Prize. (The list goes on, but I'll stop there.)

We decided to spend a few days in Copenhagen with a brief trip to Sweden, and we had a great time. Scandinavia is technically comprised of Denmark, Sweden and Norway, all of which have similar coats of arms and were once part of the much larger kingdom of Denmark (you know, the Hamlet one). It's located in a more northerly region than either of us are accustomed to, for much of the year experiencing short days and cool weather, but we happened to time our trip in late June when the days are longest. In fact we were there on the longest day of the year (read on for more about the understandably important holiday of Midsummer's Day).

The Airport train station was what you'd expect from modern Scandinavian design - modern and streamlined ...

... but the central station in Copenhagen was the opposite. Its hammer beam roof looks like it was built by Vikings, which it kind of was.

This reminded me of Amsterdam: countless bikes parked outside the train station. A lot of people get around via bike, and most of the major streets have dedicated bike lanes.

Here some more whiz by as we have lunch. It was nice to see so many bikers.

They have their own traffic lanes.

Our hotel was near a nineteenth century amusement park that today is one of the oldest in the world: the Tivoli Gardens. We skipped it, though we understand it's pretty neat ...

... evidence of which we obtined via a peek through the fence on our last night in town. We considered going in, but were rather tired. Amazingly, even though the gardens occupy only a small city square, the owners somehow managed to fit a steel roller coaster inside as well.

Usually when we get to cities we look for the tallest thing around and climb up it, or, failing that, a museum. In this case we started out in Nationalmuseet. (I'd say the Nationalmuseet, but apparently the -et suffix in Danish is a definite article, so that would be redundant.) These are Viking swords.

Nationalmuseet is an old palace, but the central courtyard is now a modern atrium.

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They also have ancient runic stones.

There is a large canal through the center of the city, encircling the oldest part that is today the center of government.

This arch on Tøjhusgade is attached to the Danish parliament building. (Mmmmmm ... Danish parliament.)

The parliament building itself was under renovation, its tower covered by an obstructing sheath of scaffolding, but next door is an even more interesting building, the Børsen. The Børsen was the major chamber of commerce for seventeenth century Copenhagen. It was formerly flush with the canal, allowing boats to dock alongside it.

Its tower is a sculpture of four serpents, their tails twisting together above their heads into a spire, much like real snakes.

Also on the central island is a relatively new building, the controversial Black Diomond.

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It's not bad. It's rather photogenic in uneven light.

This is the main canal, which runs across the city.

The road along this bit of the inner canal is called Gammel Strand. Strand is the word for the shore (hence the street named The Strand in London, which was once directly on the bank of the Thames and was named when that part of London was under Danish rule).

It wasn't until we took a boat ride into Nyhavn (literally, "new harbor") that we found what we had been expecting to see in Copenhagen.

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Nyhavn was also home to one of the most famous former residents of Copenhagen, Hans Christian Andersen.

As we continued on the boat tour we saw another new addition to the city, the Operaen, or opera house. It's really rather jarring, albeit unique. It was funded with grants from Mærsk, the largest shipping company in the world (and a local Danish business).

And in the Christianshavn neighborhood to the south of the major canal we got our first glimpse, amid boat masts, of Vor Frelsers Kirke, a church with a spiral staircase on its spire (of which more below).

We finished the evening in this neighborhood ...

... where there are lots of nice cafes.

Not far from our hotel is the Rådhuspladsen, the main square on which the Rådhuset, or city hall, is located.

We didn't go inside, but the outside was interesting.

We did go around the corner to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, sponsored in the nineteenth century by the Carlsbergs (they of the famous beer) and home to endless sculptures. (This particular room reminded me of one in the Burns mansion in The Simpsons for some reason.)

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In the north of the city is the Frederiksstaden area, home of a rather impressive church called the Marmorkirken.

It was started in the eighteenth century and then abandoned, only to be resumed in the nineteenth century, leading to a total build time of nearly 150 years. In this image, everything below the arches sat outdoors and incomplete for over a century. The dome and everything else above the arches was finished in the 1890s.

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Down the street is the Amalienborg Slot, the large open circle that is bordered by the royal palace. Queen Margrethe lives in one of the surrounding buildings.

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Behind me is the Marmorkirken.

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We walked along the harbor to the north, past some old warehouses ...

To the home of Mærsk which, as I mentioned above, is the largest shipping company in the world.

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Looking across the harbor to Nyholm, which is the old naval base.

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The symbol of the city is, for reasons not fully understood, a statue of the Little Mermaid. It has been blown up and defaced in various ways over the years. I think most people have seen photos of it somewhere or another. It's certainly now a bad sculpture, but it's not clear why it's such a popular symbol.

The sculpture is just on the edge of the old fortress, the Kastellet.

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The Kastellet even has its own windmill.

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I'm not sure why I decided to take a photo of this elephant manhole cover, but I'm rather glad I did. Somehow I neglected to take any photos of the Hans Christian Andersen manholes, of which we saw a few.

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This is the main theatre, which is in a square called Kongens Nytorv. Rather fancy.

And next to the theatre is, again, Nyhavn, that quintessential Copenhagen canal lined with ships and painted buildings.

It's nicer to look at all the people enjoying drinks than to join them, believe it or not. We found the area rather noisy and busy and the service poor. But it's lovely to photograph.

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The square on which the main theatre sits, Kongens Nytorv, has one of the city's Metro stations. They're all relatively new.

We used it to visit Christianshavn again to see if we could visit Vor Frelsers Kirke, despite the late hour (it was well after 7 PM). It turns out that the spire is open until 8.

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This is the view from just below the spire. In the distance you can see the Øresund Bridge, which stretches to Sweden.

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They also have a coastal wind farm.

Looking up the spire. It was added in 1752, though the church underneath it was finished over 50 years earlier. It had vert recently undergone a complete restoration.

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The view is fantastic, and we were the only ones up there.

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Looking down at Andrea, who waited at the base of the spire for safety.

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The interesting thing about the spiral staircase around the spire is that it is a true spiral - at the very top it narrows to a Liliputian scale, such that you can't proceed any further. My shoe in this photo should give some impression of the scale.

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A good view of Christianshavn in the foreground, with the Opraen above it, the dome of Marmorkirken above it an the sea beyond.

The church's shadow over the neighborhood to the south.

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Afterward we explored the surrounding area of Christianshavn.

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The Øresund Bridge opened a few years ago, and links Denmark with Sweden. It takes only 30 minutes to visit an entirely different country, albeit one that used to be part of Denmark, and see the city of Malmö. The lower part of the bridge carries a rail line (and that's what we're traveling on in these photos).

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Notice anything unusual about these quaint Swedish streets?

How about now? OK, in case you haven't noticed, there are no people. The city looked as if a neutron bomb had exploded just before our arrival. The shops were all closed as well. We were very confused as to why, since it was a Saturday and most of the hours posted in shop windows indicated that they were open on Saturdays. Then I noticed that one shop had a special notice about something called Midsommardagen, and it all made sense. Midsummer's Day, the longest day of the year, is a big deal in a place that gets very little sunlight in the winter. I'd close shop and enjoy it, too.

Of course we did eventually find a few people wandering around. But no open shops.

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So we went to the beach, or Ribban. This is a new addition to the skyline of Sweden's third city, the Turning Torso.

Andrea at the Ribban.

Another view of the Turning Torso.

The Ribban has great views of the Øresund Bridge, and I took far too many photos of it.

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The shore north of the Ribban is being extensively developed with modern, nicely designed apartment buildings and a rather sharp boardwalk. This is a nifty plank they built onto the end of the boardwalk.

If you look closely behind this sailboat you can see distant Copenhagen on the other side of the Øresund.

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Amongst the new buildings are some MacGuyver-esque houseboats, that contrary to the common wisdom about houseboats look like they'd make nice houses (albeit not nice boats).

We ate along the boardwalk here.

The local beer is Spendrups, and it's a nice beer for a warm, sunny day.

A closer view of the Turning Torso. I watched it to see if it actually rotated, since I'd seen photos of a similar building that does, but it doesn't.

This is the canal, which we toured by boat. The Swedish tour guide cracked jokes in two languages.

This sign along the canal advertises a rather ambitious project for the city: the tunnel project, a 17 kilometer rail link between Malmö and the Øresund Bridge. It will shave a few minutes off the travel time between Malmö and Copenhagen, as well as other cities, and will cost billions of Euros. (Speaking of Euros, Sweden and Denmark don't use them, and I mentioned in a blog entry after the trip that Sweden was the first country I've ever visited where I didn't use the local currency at all - only plastic.)

More buildings on the canal.

When we got back to Copenhagen we walked into Rådhuspladsen and I had to take a photograph of the official motto of Carlsberg beer, proclaimed in large, confident letters amid many other advertisements. It says, Probably the best beer in town. We found this endlessly funny. Yeah, it seems to proclaim, just probably. At least we think it might be. We really couldn't be bothered to verify it.

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We randomly discovered a very cute square called Gråbrødretorv.

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This is the Rundetårn, a scholarly building erected in the seventeenth century.

And this is an old royal palace called Rosenborg Slot, which is in a rather charming park with square trees.

Again, this is Kongens Nytorv, home of the main theatre.

We passed through it to visit Nyhanv again, and discovered that Midsummer's Day is also a big deal in Copenhagen, despite the stores being open. Apparently every year they burn someone's effigy on a raft, and we happened to catch it.

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A final view of Nyhavn.