Denmark: Day II (Copenhagen)

Wednesday, June 8^th:

Amalienborg Palace:

            An exhausting but wonderful day today—Copenhagen is much bigger than Stockholm! We started our day by eating the breakfast buffet at our hostel, which was mostly the same as in Stockholm: cereal, yogurt, granola, veggies, but now with some brie and more cheeses and tasty bread. We had heard it was going to rain on Thursday, so we decided to try to see the sites that were farther away from our hotel, so we set out to walk from our downtown location to the Amalienborg Palace, the winter home of Danish Royalty since the days of King Frederick V. On the way we also tried to go inside Nikolaj Kirke (Church) but found it was closed for the time we were staying in the city. We walked around the square and realized that we had about an hour before the Changing of the Guard ceremony, so we wandered down the road to Frederiks Kirke, also known as the Marble Church. This church is much less the usual cathedral church design, but more a massive domed chapel. It gets its nickname from the fact that a great portion of the church is made from marble. The inside is magnificent as it juxtaposes a new and old organ façade and is one of the largest domed churches in Europe.

The  Marble Church, Frederik's Kirke:

            After exploring the Marble Church, we walked back over to Amalienborg for the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Royal Guards in Copenhagen look generally like the British ones just in a dark blue uniform. They all wear the tall black-bear fur hats as well, some of which are far too big for the person who wears it! The ceremony was not all that involved, so we went inside Amalienborg. The Palace is actually a series of four palaces that were built to hold multiple Royal Families at once. There is also a swallow-tail Danish flag that flies above the palace to signify if the Queen is in Copenhagen, and it was flying today. The inside displays rooms filled with artifacts from the lives of those who lived there.

Rosenborg Castle:

            Following Amalienborg we walked across town through the Kongens Have (King’s Gardens) to Rosenborg Slot (Castle), built as a summer house in 1624 by Christian IV. This castle/palace was probably my favorite of the trip so far, as it stands alone with a moat in the middle of a large park, and the rooms are the most impressive. My favorite part of the castle is the top room which contains the King’s throne made entirely of Narwhal tusk and the Queen’s in silver next to it. The two thrones are also guarded by three life-sized silver statues of lions. In the basement of the castle is the Skatkammer, the Royal Treasury of Denmark. This treasury and armory blows those of Sweden out of the water. Inside are hundreds of weapons, artworks, ivory and amber wares, and more. One of the coolest pieces in the armory collection is a set of two colt pistols gifted to the then-monarch of Denmark by US President Abraham Lincoln. In the back of the treasury is the good stuff—centuries-old crowns, regalia, scepters, orbs, the sword of state, and the impressive royal orders of the Elephant and the Danish Flag, the Dannebrog. I could stay in this room and stare at these objects for days!

The Cathedral of Copenhagen:

            We walked out of the King’s Gardens over to the Cathedral of Copenhagen, Vor Frue Kirke. This church is fairly un-impressive looking from the outside, but it is one of the bigger churches in the city. The front façade, however, is magnificent and contains old friezes and giant Roman pillars. Inside it looks very modern, but is pretty nonetheless. We walked across the street to Sankt Petri Kirke (St. Peter’s Church) but found out that it closes at 3pm. We also walked around the Helligaands Church, but it was also closed. By this time we were starving, so we made our way back towards Amalienborg for a traditional Danish lunch of Smørrebrød—open faced sandwiches with different foods piled on. We went to a restaurant called Amadeus and I had the opportunity to try two different ones, so I went with one that had roast beef, pickles, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, orange, peas, tartar sauce and horseradish. My second was one that had lettuce, tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, baby shrimp, mayonnaise, cucumbers, and lemon. Jen ate Fish Rissole (basically fish meatballs) with a side salad. We also tried the other Copenhagen-brewed beer here, Tuborg.

The Rådhus:

            By this time we were pretty exhausted from a full day of walking and touring, so we headed back towards our hotel by way of the Rådhuspladsen square at the city center. Overlooking the plaza is the Rådhus, the town hall of Copenhagen. A charity-event box-mini soccer game was going on in the square, so we stopped and watched for a little bit to rest our legs before heading back for a nap. We woke up fairly late, grabbed a late dinner at a restaurant nearby called Haiku Sushi, and stayed inside for some time while it was raining. When the rain stopped, we ran over to a bar recommended to me by my friend Matt Collins called Den Glade Gris, or The Happy Pig. They had a shot-special of 10 shots for 100 DKK, so we had that and a couple beers before heading back to the hostel bar to see what was up there. After a beer at hostel bar, we noticed that a group of four was planning to walk over to Christiania. We joined them, and soon learned that two of them were Belgian private-plane pilots, and the other two were Germans from Munich, a boy and girl. We walked with them the twenty-five or so minutes to Christiania.

The Flag of Christiania:

            Christiania is possibly the strangest place I have ever been in my life, especially at night. This little park area is technically not governed by Copenhagen, and is basically a free-spirit commune or anarchist society. The area is adorned with graffiti art, random metal art-structures, and tons of little shops. It is particularly controversial, however, in that it is an area where the 850 or so inhabitants are legally allowed to sell marijuana, hashish, and other “soft-drugs.” I should note, that they are particularly against “hard-drugs” and openly enforce this as well as prohibiting pictures of their famed “Pusher Street.” We walked through here for a bit, sticking together, and made our way to the local pub Woodstock for a beer—a Christiania beer brewed right in their commune. It was getting late, so after a beer or two we took a cab back to the hostel for another drink and went to sleep around 3am. What a long day!