Rick and Marie's Travels: Scandinavia

Copenhagen, September 9th to 14th

Wednesday it rained until 2:30PM so, after visiting our local bakery for coffee and breakfast, we worked on the first post for this blog. Didn't feel the need to get drenched again. When the sky cleared we headed for the train station to purchase tickets for our Saturday travel to Stockholm. It was a pretty low key day, but we still walked 4 miles, three of those along Stroget Street, the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe, that ends two blocks short of the central train station.

Danes ride bikes throughout the city. The
100% tax on the purchase of a car is only
one reason. The other is that dedicated
bike lanes separate riders from cars and
trucks, making bikes the easiest way to
move about Copenhagen.

This is a normal site on side streets.

Stroget pedestrian shopping street.

Stroget Street.

City Hall (more about this later)

We stopped here for lunch.

Smörrebröd is a favorite open-face sandwich on brown
bread. The next pics show various toppings.

We chose this food stall...

where Marie ordered pork and duck bao...

and I had pork bao.

This green stretches the length of Skt.
Annae Street outside our hotel.

Bust of FDR on Skt. Anne St. green.

Today, Thursday September 12th, is going to be sunny and 60 so we started our day with a 4.3 mile loop around the perimeter of the city center. We stepped out our hotel door, turned right (south) toward the harbor two blocks away and then headed west toward Christiansborg Palace, continuing on past the National Museum, turning north up to City Hall, toward The Fountain of Charity in the Old Square, continuing past Copenhagen Cathedral and into and through the University of Copenhagen district, before turning east into the Rosenborg Castle Gardens, and then south again ending our circle back at our hotel.

The pictures and videos you'll see show some of the highlights along our walk. The walk was particularly enjoyable, because we avoided the crowds by skirting the most popular sites we'd already visited during our three hour City Center Walking Tour on Tuesday. Mainly, we wanted to do our usual "walk and gawk" and see what was going on outside the bustling center.

Started our morning again at Emmery's
Cafe to fortify ourselves.

Karen Blixen, author of Out of Africa,
sculpture a block from our hotel.

We walked around The Royal Playhouse that fronts

the harbor.

Our Savior's Church tower from The
Royal Playhouse deck.

Just noted the reliefs used to decorate buildings.

The Grand Canal Tour is well worth it.

Nyhavn is 17th century waterfront canal and is lined
with brightly painted townhouses, restaurants, and
bars. This formerly working harbor is the entertainment
district of Copenhagen.

I wouldn't mind living in one of these townhomes.

We crossed the Nyhavn bridge on our way to
Christiansborg Palace. Just liked the looks of this.

Christiansborg Palace at the end of the block is now

the seat of Denmark's government. The first castle

built on this site was in 1167.

Ya, that's a Ukraine flag at the top of
this apartment building.

This guy was remotely operating a crane lifting rebar and other renovation supplies to the top floor. We stopped to watch him skillfully maneuver the crane in a tight spot.

Check out these outer doors.

We walked through this corridor on the
backside of the Christiansborg Palace.

Section of the canal that encircles the Palace.

While taking the above picture, this guy silently glided by.

Bishop Absalon (1128), the founder of
Copenhagen is situated over City Hall's
main entrance.

The polar bears on both sides of the
roof represent the annexation of
Greenland.

I have no idea why these three towers sit above
Bishop Absalon.

The central pavilion of City Hall was inspired by
Sienna's City Hall.

Taking in the central pavilion's grandeur.

Enlarge the picture to see this five story
thermometer indicating the air temp. At
night it is neon-lit.

Close up of the weather girls who used to rotate to
signify the weather. The one riding the bike meant
it was sunny, and when it was rainy, the girl with
umbrella rotated forward.

The Fountain of Charity (1608) used to be the city's

main water source. The naked pregnant woman

holds a child to her breast and a naked boy peeing

was considered risqué by Victorian era citizens so

the bronze sculptures were raised.

This walkway joins two buildings in the university

district. I'm sure the enormous clock reduces

student tardiness.

Rosenborg Castle gardens.

The university is across the street, so this would be

a perfect picnic place when skipping spring classes.

Guards just outside the castle walls rehearsing for...?

Rosenborg Castle was originally built as a summer
house in 1606 by Christian IV. It even has a moat.
The castle houses the coronation crown along with
other fine trinkets we didn't pay to ogle.

Hans Christian Andersen ponders the
plot for his next fable.

Some more reliefs that spruce up what would
otherwise be a boring brick apartment.

Back "home"—our circular stroll completed.
Perhaps a visit to the rooftop garden/bar is in
order later this afternoon.

•. •. •

After a little rest we headed out to forage for food. We found the food court and outdoor market our walking tour guide mentioned two days ago. It's an impressive place with all kinds of food stalls and fresh meats, fish, veggies, cheese, wine, coffee and tea shops, chocolates and sweets of all kinds, and of course, the ubiquitous flower shops. We added another 3 miles in our food foraging foray for a total of 7.3 miles today. We should sleep well tonight.

The view from our hotel's roof top terrace. Loved
the light of the early evening.

Rush hour on bikes and in cars. See
what I mean about dedicated lanes?

This is only half the bikes parked outside a train station.

I didn't catch the name of food court and market,
but will tomorrow because we're returning for
Marie's birthday dinner.

This shop specialized in chicken, just chicken.

And guess what this guy's specialty was?

And then there were prepared foods
like this shop that had all kinds of
salads and spreads.

The cheese shops are one of my favorites.

We decided on smorresbord for dinner.

For dinner we shared lox & salmon spread with roe
and a sliced beef with egg salad smorresbord
(open-faced sandwich on thinly sliced brown bread)
and Marie had a glass of Danish red wine and I tried
a local IPA.

Flowers still gorgeous at King Nytorv
Square not far from our hotel.

At King Nytorv Square we took a brief break before
walking the quarter mile back to our hotel. This was
the kind of day we really enjoy—walking, gawking,
and enjoying neighborhoods, architecture, and
trying to get in the groove of local life.

• •. •

By the time you look at this page, we have already begun Marie's birthday. It may be Friday the 13th, but as you can see, it's off to a good start.

Emmery's Cafe was jammed so we crossed the lane
to a near-empty one and it was great as well!

We love these corridors that open up
to interior courtyards.

The Royal Residence is a block from

our hotel. I snapped this on the way

to Frederik's Church just around the

corner from where he stands.

This round church is nicknamed the
Marble Church, because the interior
was supposed to be lined in marble.
Right, didn't happen, but the interior
is still striking.

That's right, the church has two organs.

We needed to extend our walk and followed the
crowds to see the second most disappointing
sculpture in Europe.

And here it is.

Along the way though, we got to see
the former Ugly Duckling.

The Amager Resource Center powers 80,000 homes.

Copenhagen has to import trash from other parts of

the country, because the citizens of the city don't

create enough. You gotta click on the link and read

about the ski slope that's part of this energy station.

A British person on our walking tour
said the Design Museum was well
worth a visit for the current exhibit
as well as the traditional/commercial
work on display. She was right.

Entrance to the museum with
a view into its courtyard.

This is called the hugging sweater.

Tesla before there was Tesla.

Printed fabric to the left aptly named.

The vials displayed like a medicine cabinet.

Just had to get a close up of this row.

Danish Modern furniture, especially chairs, is how we know anything about Denmark (besides Hamlet, of course). An entire wing of the Design Museum of Denmark is dedicated to chair designs over the years..

The Felzer's had one of these at Camano.

One section of the museum was dedicated to Irma's
modern commercial art.

Irma shopping bags.

Canisters we all wish we owned today.

After the museum, we walked back into the city
center in search of comfortable seating and a drink.

Found this square yesterday and returned for a
rest and a bit of people watching after the museum.

The fountain in the square
could have come from the
Danish Design Museum.

Left the museum during commuter time.

After walking 7 miles again, we returned to our hotel to freshen up before heading out for Marie's birthday dinner at 7PM. We passed this restaurant twice over the past few days and Marie wanted to give it a try and we're so glad we did.