The Day of Three Museums

 

Thorvaldsens Museum

Today (Wednesday) was focussed on three very different Museums, more about each of them later. First, time to reflect on waking up and missing breakfast!!

Early Morning

I woke up at 5.30am and began on the blog post for the day before. As the post got longer and longer, I realised quite how busy we had been, and at 9am it seemed time to finish and do my ablutions - so I completed that post at the 1.30pm point yesterday and will come back to it later today.

While making coffee - there are coffee bags and a kettle in the hotel room - for us both I checked the webpage of the Danish Jewish Museum - it had been one of the places we had walked past yesterday (when it was closed) but we had seen signs saying that the new exhibition - Flight and Pursuit in the 20th century - was opening today, so I went online and booked tickets as they are not sold at the door. The website was fine until getting to the purchase page, which unlike the previous pages wouldn't default to the English version - with the help of Google Translates photo option on my phone and Drew's knowledge of Swedish (which he keeps saying is very different from Danish, but shares some words) we managed - it appeared - to make the booking and get a on screen message saying we had booked for the 11 to 12 slot, the site promised an email and SMS to confirm. 

The route to the Danish Jewish Museum

We left the hotel at 10am planning to find a coffee shop for breakfast along the way to our 11am visit of the Museum. We walked along Tietgensgade and over the railway lines. One of the things about staying in Vesterbro is that you have either to walk up to the Front of the Central Station or go across the bridge over the lines on Tietgensgade to get to the City Centre (of course we could have gone down on to the Metro, but wanted to start the day with a walk. 

This time we continued on Tietgensgade all the way to the Christianborg Castle (Borgen) not spotting a single coffee shop on route. 

We crossed Fredericksholm Canal and spotted some statues, it turns out that they are part of the collection in the Lapidarium of Kings, which is the old King's Brew house converted now into "a graveyard for statues no longer on display in the city".

Some of the statues, above, still look fine, others, below, look like they have been burnt, but are just covered in the City smog from their time on top of one or other grand building.  

Walking around the Lapidarium we come to the modern annex to the Royal Library, known locally as the Black Diamond, it is very different in style to the red brick of the original library, to which it is connected by a bridge across the main road.

We still hadn't found our breakfast stop and as it was now 10.40am we opted to sit in the Garden of the Royal Library and wait for the Museum to open. This gave Drew a chance to photograph the duck house (with no ducks!!) he mentioned in yesterday's blog post.

 Danish Jewish Museum

We arrived at the Danish Jewish Museum as the doors opened at 11am. I'd checked my Sainsbury's Credit Card app and I could see the pending amount for our tickets, which at least meant I'd not messed up one of the Danish questions on the booking page. It turns out we were not alone, as the Museum's booking system had gone down - meaning email tickets weren't sent out, nor were the 'pick-up booked tickets on site' option open. I guess it is the first day of the new exhibition so hiccups will occur.

It was interesting that the entrance to the foyer of the museum (above) was limited to one party at a time. They had to remove their jackets and put them and any bags into lockers before being allowed through the, equally secure, second set of doors and those of us outside let in. We were the third group to go through the process, so had time to watch the procedure before doing it.

The floorplan of the museum, see above, is a representation of the Hebrew word - Covenant - ( בְּרִית bĕriyth) such an essential concept in Jewish religion and one shared with the Christian faith. God's covenant with his people is at the heart of Jewish faith and belief.

The Danish Jewish Museum is housed in the Galley House, which was originally part of Christian IV's (1588-1648) newly established harbour facilities, where the navy's ships were armed and provisioned. When it had ceased in this role it become a bakery and was closed for a time before being converted into its current use. The ceiling indicates some of its earlier uses.

The Musuem has made good use of wood to break up the large space and make it more amenable to museum exhibition. I was really interested in the Danish perspective on the Shoah period which was the topic of this exhibition. During lockdown in 2020 I studied three courses online with the education team at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and had my perspective blown away with the history of antisemitism from early times to the present - I'd assumed it had only started in Europe in the 10th or 11th Century, not 20 centuries before. So, having had my eyes opened I was interested to see what had happened in Denmark, which was not covered in as much detail in the course as Germany, Ukraine, Hungry, Poland and Russia. There were a lot less Jewish people in Denmark than in many of the other countries, but they suffered similar privations under the Nazi regime. Many, thankfully, were able to escape to Sweden where they were less vulnerable to detention and deportation than in Denmark.

The museum made good use of audio-visual material to tell the story of Denmark's Jewish people's culture and physical pieces to evoke the era of deportation and death in the World War period. Rather than me tell you about this, many of the objects are included in the 34 photos on Flickr - starting here.  

The museum was well worth the entrance fee, 100 kroner (£11) each, for the hour we spent there.

Thorvaldsen's Museum

The next museum we visited was the most bizarre I have ever experienced. It was all the work (in more ways than one) of one man - Bertel Thorvaldsen. I put links to many of the people I reference in this blog, but it is worth reading about Thorvaldsen, even if the Google translation of that page isn't perfect, the sense is clear.

Bertel, see his self-sculpture above, (also known as Alberto and Albert) was a sculptor, but not a modern sculptor rather a classical and neo-classical sculptor, making it appear that his amazing work is a rip-off of previous works. While some of his works are modelled on older originals, the vast majority of his sculpture is of his own creation, though borrowing from the ancient style.  

From 1797–1838 he lived in Rome and during that time developed the skill of sculpting in marble, he went on to be commissioned to make many famous sculptures including the death scene of St. Pope Pius the Ninth which stands in the Vatican (and his copy here).

On his return to Copenhagen in 1938 he brought all his works back with him and this forms the display on the outside walls of his museum. The 22 pictures of the outside can be seen on Flickr - starting here. 

In 1819 on a visit home, he was commissioned to make large statues of Jesus and the Apostles for the rebuilding of Vor Frue Kirke (now Copenhagen's Cathedral) which had been set alight by the perfidious English who attacked the City in 1807 to stop its Navy falling into Napoleon's hands.

Thorvaldsen also made busts of various famous people of his time including Walter Scott and other authors and poets. The set of all his sculpture and other works can be seen in the 150 photos on Flickr from here on - there could have been 500 or more if we had taken photos of all the statues! (NB: There was also an exhibition in the one free space of "Modern Art" by Sean Scully - there are two examples of it in the photos, but it isn't our taste, so we haven't inflicted much of the random splodges of colour [Co-pilot's note: I, dear readers, really hope that Mr. Scully doesn't have a piece of software that links to any reference to him in blogs etc! He might be a bit upset by seeing his life's work reduced to "random splodges of colour"] on anyone who looks at my Flickr site!

To compound the bizarreness of the place, Thorvaldsen is buried in the central courtyard of the building in which his exhibits are displayed.

It might be bizarre, but it was a fun place to visit, and we were surprised to find that the entrance fee was waved as it is Wednesday, more of that later.

Lunch

As you may have noticed we headed out at 10am this morning planning to have breakfast. It was now 1.30pm and we hadn't eaten since our, all be it huge, meal last night. So, our first task post the museum was to find somewhere to eat. 

We passed some places that wanted us to have a cooked lunch but we soon came upon an Espresso Huset that did what we were looking for a light sandwich and a coffee each.  

I choose a Chorizo sandwich which came on dark rye bread with Chorizo, Avokado, Mozzarella. Tomat, Rucola + Pesto (to use the Danish). I love the strong taste of dark rye bread and the flavours of the meat cheese and salad were very welcome to me.

Drew went for a Kylling (Chicken) Sandwich which had the same ingredients as mine other than the chorizo being replaced by chicken.  Avokado, Mozzarella. Tomat, Rucola + Pesto.

These were washed down with a latte and americano [Co-pilot's note: and two delightful little bits of chocolate for me!].

Museum of Copenhagen

From Espresso Huset we walked past the Law Court and City Hall before arriving at the City Museum, next to the City Hall (Rådhus). The Museum is itself located in an old house in the centre of the City.

We entered the museum to find the ticket booth. On arriving we were told that the museum was free. I asked: "Why is the museum free today", the reply, with straight face and no attempt at humour - "because it is Wednesday"!! So, there you are, for the reason that it is Wednesday all the City funded museums in Copenhagen are free! Our plan to visit the museums hadn't taken this into account, but we benefitted from it.

The Museum is superbly curated with information and audio-visual materials in both Danish and English and a range of fascinating artefacts. Over three floors and five rooms, it takes you on a journey from around 12,000BCE right up to the modern day.

The building also has the first bit of stained glass we have seen in the City depicting some of the scenes of the old City.

Flickr has 55 photos which you can look at starting here. 

Off the three museums we had visited today, this was the one that had the clearest timelines and clearest overall picture of the development of a place across history. I really found it fascinating and well worth the visit.

We left the museum at 3.30pm and walked back along the route we had come arriving back at the hotel 15 minutes later and taking time to complete yesterday's blog post and shower and change for tonight's meal.

Restaurant Barr

Tonight we had booked Restaurant Barr at 6.30pm. I'd booked this restaurant because it occupies the original space that Noma used before it expanded and moved. If I couldn't book Noma as I'd not done so six months in advance, I could at least see the space that it made famous.

The Restaurant is situated on part of the ground floor Nordatlantens Brygge - North Atlantic Building on the island across the Inner Harbour from Nyhavn.

We left the hotel at 5.30pm caught the M3 train to Kongens Nytorv and strolled on the opposite side of the canal in Nyhavn from that which we had done yesterday.

We then crossed the modern Interharbour bridge which is cycle and pedestrian only and arrived at Barr at 6:20pm, ten minutes early for our booking.

We were sat straight away and had the fun of having to type a Danish wifi code into our devices before using the QR code on the table to access the menu

The table was well located with the chefs operating in the kitchen just behind Drew's head.

We began the meal with Dark Rye bread and salted butter. the bread was not only rich and tasty but was filled with nuts and seeds giving it a rich earthy flavour. I love this bread and Drew promised [Co-pilot's note: I believe, dear readers, that I suggested I may, at some point in the future decide to make it, if the fancy takes me. NO PROMISES WERE MADE!!] to make me some of this style bread when we get home!

For starters Drew opted for Beef Tartare which had rich mustard seeds and a light eggy and smoked cheese dressing with crispy rye croutons. Drew managed the 'this meat is a little underdone' joke which is now traditional but loved the dish noting that rye was an unusual combination with tartare, but that it worked really well. 

I had also thought of the tartare, but on the grounds of wanting to try something different I opted for the Romaine Salad and I was really glad I did. The romaine leaves were bunched together looking like a bouquet they had a melted Danish hard cheese at the base and the bouquet was complete with courgette flowers, fresh herbs and sharp pickled cucumber. Romaine is one of my favourite lettuces, but with this added flavour it became better than any previous time I have eaten it, tasty and tangy, with the sharp acidity of cheese made it perfect for me.

Drew suggested we might try the Pork Chop for two. I was really pleased with this suggestion as I had fancied it too but expected Drew to opt for something else. When it arrived, it looked more like a dinosaur than a pig leg! It was breaded and fried on the bone and topped with chanterelles. Lingonberries were served on the side and a burnt butter sauce with capers was poured over the top. We had ordered new potatoes and these were amazing too they were served with lovage and pickled gherkin which draw out the gentle softness of fresh lightly cooked spud with a tang of pickle and a long lightly aniseed hint from the lovage flowers. We both really enjoyed this as it was nicely seasoned and the breadcrumbs crisp and tasty.

Anyone who has looked at the menu here will not be surprised that I opted for the Fried Danish Camembert in breadcrumbs with cloudberry compote. The compote was not sweet and I found I enjoyed the taste of cloudberry, tart like a red currant with a hint of sweetness. Still I didn't combine the two as I like cheese in its native form, so I was glad that the breadcrumbs it was fried in were plane and more a vehicle for delivering the cheese than a distinctive taste in itself.

Drew had a “Stå Pandekage” which means Stood up Pancake, though it looked and had the look of a hard taco it was very different in flavour. Inside it carried raspberries and milk ice cream with little wafts of pineapple weed. The raspberries were very bitter which was perfect with the sweetness of the ice cream. The pancake had more of a pastry texture and was a little softer than a taco which meant keeping the insides in a little challenging. 

We finished the meal at 8pm and took a gentle walk back along Christianhavn and back along Tietgensgade which at this time of night is lit by the rides of the Tivoli Gardens.

We got back to the hotel at 8.45pm. We were again in bed by 10pm after a busy, but fascinating day.