Tirsdag eftermiddag i København - Tuesday Afternoon in Copenhagen

 

Copenhagen Harbour 

I'd planned to contain the whole day's activities in my last post, but as I continued to write it I realised quite how much we had done in such a short time. So, I decided to split the post and cover the afternoon and evening in this post. It is why the image of Nyhavn appeared on the top of that post (when I started it), even though we didn't get there until later in the afternoon. 

Niels Juels

We left the last post as we walked from Holmen's Church. This took us up Niels Juel Gade to the statue of Niels Juel the famous, well in Denmark anyway, admiral. He was buried with state honours in the crypt of Holmen's Church. His statue is the centre of the road between the Danish Foreign Ministry 

and two of the major offices of Danske Bank, both buildings are very impressive.

Kongens Nytorv

Next we walked up the main road to Kongens Nytorv (The King's New Square).  Kongens Nytorv is one of the central points in the City. This is helped by the fact that it is one of the points where the Metro 1 and 2 lines cross with that of the 3 and 4 lines. Indeed, it was the point where we changed metro trains on our journey between the Airport and the Hotel - though that was deep underground. We came to the square, this time above ground. 

Here are the large store Magasin de Nord, 

the French Embassy 

and the Royal National Theatre. 

Nyhavn

Beyond Kongens Nytorv we quickly arrived at Nyhavn. The canal has an end channel here and the amazing canal side buildings are historic and painted in bright colours. 

Like so many of the places we have visited on this day, Flickr has many more images than can be shared in the blog. Start here and click/swipe left.

Walking along Nyhavn was really relaxing, with restaurants and craft shops to the left and the canal and many boats to the right. 

The next item worth mentioning, other than the lovely relaxing feel of the place, is the new bridge on the other side of the canal which goes from that side of Nyhavn to Grønlandske Handels Plads one of the small islands of Christianhavn. The bridge is called Inderhavnsbroen - i.e. Inner Harbour bridge - as it is the first to span the inner harbour between the old heart of the City and the new developments

Ofelia Plads 

At the end of Nyhavn we come to Ofelia Plads, the harbour of the City. 

First we encounter yet another of the Boat Bus stops, with people waiting for the next bus on the canal!

The modern buildings opposite Ofelia Plads includes the Copenhagen Opera House, while quite new, its distinctive architecture attracts as many visitors as do the operas performed there.

The so-called Kissing Steps at the end of Ofelia Plads offer a great view of the harbour including the huge cruise ships which seem to be visiting the City at present.

From Ofelia Plads we come into Sankt Annæ Plads, which is at the centre of the 'new' (1760s) City built when the walls of the original City were brought down and the City expanded. Unlike the somewhat random order of the old City the 'new' City is laid out like the centre of many European cities in well ordered streets circling around a central road. Sankt Annæ Plads is a straight street, following the line of a filled in canal on the edge of the 'new' City between Nyhavn and it.

The area include statues of Carl Frederik Tietgen, the industrialist, FDR, the former US President, Herman Bang, the journalist and Johan Peter Emilius Hartmann, the composer.

The Garrison Church

At the bottom of Sankt Annæ Plads is the Garrison Church, while this church was closed there were many external memorials. The Garrison Church was originally designed for the City Militia, but over time has become a place of memorial for the Army. 

One of the particularly poignant images of the area around the church is the statue called: One of the many, remembering those who died in war.

We had seen another equestrian statue off a side street from Sankt Annæ Plads and were glad to see that the Danes are E car friendly with some on street charging by EON.

Amalienborg

The statue we had seen was more than just a statue but led us to a set of columns. I was amused by Drew's reaction as he walked through these columns only to find a large soldier with a big bushy hat and a rather sharp looking bayonet on the end of his gun standing forward and making him move out of the way. [Co-pilot's note: He, dear readers, had a dirty great big bayonet and was looking at me menacingly. What was I going to do - argue with him!!]

It turns out we had come to the amazing circular space called  Amalienborg with a building on the four 'sides' made up of four Royal palaces all in Rocco style. 

Queen Margherita II and the royal family still live in these buildings. 

The Marble Church

A short distance from Amalienborg, indeed visible from the statue at the centre of the plaza is King Frederik's Church often known, for obvious reasons, as the Marble Church. 

This is a truly amazing building. Its impressive design and the height of its dome mark it out as something you would be more likely to see in Rome than in a capital City in Scandanavia. 

Named for King Frederik the Fifth, who commissioned it, and laid the foundation stone in 1749, it had some problems along the way. Planned to be built entirely of Norwegian Marble it become so expensive that from 1770 to 2870 it stood as a part-built ruin. Only with the emergence of Nikolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, the poet and pastor, and a great character (as noted in the programme 1864 mentioned in my last post) did the church get completed in 1894. So, while the base is marble the upper parts of the church are faxe marble, but still looks enough like marble to warrant its name. Flickr includes 32 photos of both the exterior and interior and the many statues around the exterior - they are well worth a look. Start here and click/swipe right.

Back to Vesterbro

From the back of the Marble Church it is only 50 metres, as the name suggests to the Marmorkirken Metro Station which is on the M3/4 line that takes us back to Vesterbro, a block from our hotel. As ever the metro trains are clean and comfortable.

Before going back to the hotel we stop at a coffee shop called Risteriet Coffee Halmtorvet which has a nice underground space, and delicious coffee. The server sounds Irish, but it turns out she is from Denmark, but spent five years working in Dublin.

We left the coffee shop and walked the three minutes to the hotel, arriving back at 3.30pm - five and a half hours and 7.6 miles of walking since we left.

Dinner

I began to load the photographs from the day - they took a bit of editing - and then loaded them online. Prompted by my sister and her husband, who are on holiday in the UK and have eaten at a Thai restaurant twice in the last few days, we had opted earlier this afternoon to book a table at the nearby Thai called Baan Thai Isarn. There earlier slots were all booked, but we got a table for 8.30pm and entered a full restaurant with just the space for us too - lucky we booked.

As long time fans, and aficionados, of Thai food we were glad to see that we could recognise the Thai names for most of the dishes, even though they were on the menu in Danish and English. We started with one of our favourites - Tom Yam Gung, this spicy prawn soup was one of the dishes I first tried in the late 1980s when I had my first Thai meal in Cardiff, I have had it since in Thai's around the world and this version was as good as any other I've tried.

Our starters were Geow Grob and Bor Bia Tod two stable dishes from Thailand, both served with a homemade chilli sauce, that was delightfully chilli and, thankfully, not to sweet.

For mains, alongside the lovely fluffy rice, we shared Ner Pad Num Mun Hoy, Pad Krapaw Moo and Larb Gai.

I've cooked versions of each of these meals myself in the past, but there is something about a Thai restaurant that adds an intensity of flavour that goes beyond even my own tasty versions. This was the case here - the waitress did no harm in achieving her tip by complementing me on my Thai pronunciation. As I've said before I am proficient in food ordering in about five language of which Thai is probably number 2, next to Spanish, so I knew I wasn't bad at it, but it was good to get positive reinforcement. 

The meal over we headed back to the hotel, past two intriguing night clubs with names (and images) which implied the dancers were more likely to be using poles than people in their dancing. We headed past and got back to the hotel at 10.15pm.