Denmark

In general the streets are not made for people with disabilities. They are made for young people and bicyclists but the old don’t seem to have quite as much attention given to them as they would be in the states. And there is a lot of construction going on. High cranes, loud drilling, etc. they are putting in a new subway line..

My little hotel turned out to be just perfect. The bed is very comfortable. It is quiet and easy to get around the area. This morning I started off with Rick Steve’s walking tour and it was almost raining and quite chilly. But as the day wore on it became more sunshiny than cloudy and warmer than chilly but there was still a good breeze. I was glad I had brought warm enough clothes. The flowers are at about the same stage at home. Tulips everywhere and flowering trees.

I walked all the way down the Strotget, all the way to the canal tour terminus. Before I got there I stopped at the Illums Bolighus Department store and bought a couple of trinkets. I spent quite awhile there; it is a dream of Danish decor for me.

I found a little restaurant in a “church that is not a church,” called Maven. It has outdoor tables as many of the cafes and restaurants do, but it was much too chilly for that. (Some places have shawls on the outside chairs, in case you want to chance it!). It seems to be a place popular with locals, and for the third time I got addressed first in Danish.. And only when I spoke did they switch to English! I had veal tartare, which came with a lovely little arugula salad and of course onions and caper berries and cornichons. With a glass of wine, and excellent bread, a warm, blissfully pleasant lunch.

I continued my walk down to the canal where the tour boats start, and that was a very nice respite from walking. I knew to get on one that was partially covered, so that if It was too windy, I could duck inside. But it was great fun to see all the boats, and the new buildings built quite recently, and still being built, directly on the harbor. Guess they haven’t, in the most ecologically conscious of countries, thought of seas rising.

When I left the canal boat I walked down a street I thought was parallel to the one I’d followed to the square. It was, instead, a spoke on a wheel away from it, and I ended up, pretty bushed, at the gardens of the Rosenholm Palace. Too tired to go in, I took abus back to the train station and walked back to the hotel. I’ll go there tomorrow.

By now the weather has mostly cleared and I have been off my feet for a couple of hours, so before I go to bed, I’m going over to Tivoli after dark.

Since I’d gone over late so that I’d be there in the dark, for the lights, I went around photographing everything in sight! A guard stopped me to say there was going to be “illuminations” on the lake shortly, so I walked over. Came across two adorable little girls about nine years old. One was competently using a cell phone and the other was sobbing. I stopped and asked if they were lost (in English) and the cell phone one confirmed it. They were there with a school group but someone was coming for them. She was pretty good with her English! I hailed a guard and he talked to them a moment and said he would wait with them until the chaperone came. And I went over to see the illuminations on the lake which were the usual dancing waters and dancing lights, but quite beautiful.

This is a real palace, of course updated and restored over the years, but the furnishings are in many places original, there had been no destroying fire such as I’d see at Fredericksbørg Slot, and it was inhabited during much of the 17th Century. I tried to figure out which kings had the most influence on its building, but it is more than a bit confusing, with all the Christians and Fredericks..  But there’s the Mirror “cabinet” where Frederick IV (who started rule in 1700) could look up through the ceiling below to see under the skirts of ladies,  and “Christian IV’s blood-stained clothes from the naval battle of Kolberger Heide, 1st July 1644.”    Throne rooms to toilets, it’s very interesting.

In the lower depths there are the royal jewels and crowns. And THEY are quite spectacular.

The next day was a bit disorganized because museums and other “attractions” are closed on Mondays. We went to the beautiful botanical gardens by Rosenborg castle and then walked all over, even to Christiania, the bedraggled hippie enclave. I’m too old for that, I fear! We had a good lunch at the same restaurant I’d eaten at before, Maven, and it was just as good as before. I was tired and returned to the flat and dozed a bit, then went to the supermarket below and bought myself some of the many prepared foods there for supper. Kirsten, my landlady, was still feeling terrible so we kept apart.

On Tuesday I met Carla again and we set off for Fredericksborg castle, a truly impressive castle with moat and many many sculptures embellishing the facade. Inside, we found out that almost nothing in the castle was original to it, but installed as part of its current incarnation as the national museum of Danish history. A great great many dark portraits of Danes. Some furniture but not a lot. The castle looks to be in marvelous repair but that is because in 1853 a good bit of it burned, and was restored. There were a lot of sketches, etc, to work from in doing the restoration. It is indeed impressive, just not ancient.

Carla and I lunched there, and then she left me to return to Copenhagen and Germany. I took a train over to Helsingør, on the coast, and walked quite a long way to see the castle there, called Kronberg. I didn’t attempt to go inside, but I did go into the “casements” which are two levels of corridors below the ramparts of the castle. Dark and damp. Just after I emerged, and was leaving to walk back to the train, a thunderstorm came up and by the time I was at the station, the lower half of me was quite damp. But I persevered and caught the train down the line to Louisiana, the newish art museum.

At Louisiana, the current exhibition is pop art, and as with Christiania, I found that I was in a been-there, done-that mode and not really interested. But the grounds, and the siting of the sculptures on the grounds, and the way they could be framed by the building, were quite impressive. Reminded me of some of the high-end modern houses in Houston in the fifties, the ones that were on house tours, all in one museum. The train finally made it back; it was a real milk train.

Wednesday Kirsten was feeling better so we talked all morning, and we really enjoyed getting to know each other. I was relaxed, then went out in the afternoon for last minute shopping, then back for a goodbye dinner of chicken fricasseed, stuffed with parsley, with potatoes and salad and gravy, and raspberry compote. I really love Copenhagen, with all its bikes and pedestrian streets, and the flat and its location were perfect. In a few years the metro they are putting in will be done, and then it will really be fabulous.