Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen

Our apartment is in the Christianshavn area, only 15-20 minutes walk from the city area, so it’s very convenient.  Again we’re up 4 flights of stairs but the apartment is roomy and light with a little terrace over the street where we sit and have a drink each day.  The walk into the city is over a couple of canals lined with sailboats and is very picturesque, with lots of cafes and restaurants in the area.  The one drawback is the double bed pictured on the interweb is actually a king single, so we’re  struggling to get adequate sleep.

We did a 3 hour walking tour on day 1 which took us to many of the major sights around the city – the Town Hall, Opera House, Old Stock Exchange, Christiansborg Castle (Parliament House) and , Amalienborg Palace (official residence of the Royal family, including Mary), Copenhagen Cathedral and other significant sites.  Since then we’ve been back to visit a few of them in more detail and have also visited the Danish National Museum and the central city plaza.  In the city this week there is a Jazz Festival and there are a number of sites around the city where jazz bands from all over the world are playing free concerts every day and evening.  Today there were thousands of people in the city plaza sitting and listening to a great trad jazz group – bars serving beer and wine, icecream stalls and everybody having fun.  The beer’s pretty good too, although it’s served in half litre cups – a bit of a trap cause it’s NOT light beer.

The weather is fantastic and looks good for the rest of the week – clear skies and mid-20s.  This afternoon we visited Christiania – a hippy community which has declared itself a separate state and they have no law against smoking “strange substances”.    It’s a bit of an eerie feeling walking through streets where the smell is definitely not rotting fruit.  The hippies took over a disused military site many years ago and refused to move, so they’re still there and it’s become quite a tourist destination.   They sell all sorts of hand-made goods to help support the community and much of it is quite good.

Copenhagen is again, a cycle society – don’t get in their way, they get pretty annoyed.  Bicycles everywhere and dedicated cycle lanes on every street.  We’ve found the pedestrian areas in many parts of the city, a little grubby.  Cigarette butts everywhere – the great majority of Danes are smokers.  The city is nowhere near as ‘old’ as many that we’ve visited.  They had a number of fires that razed the city in the 1700s, before they started building in stone and brick, so the buildings are mostly later styles.  Some are quite spectacular – the Old Stock Exchange for instance, with its weird spire (intertwined serpents) and Our Saviour’s Church with a spiral staircase on the outside of the spire.  Quite amazing!  But it’s an expensive city where a lunchtime sandwich (typical Danish open sandwich) and a beer will set you back $30 to $40.