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.  

Føler mig hjemme i København - Feeling at home in Copenhagen

 

The Iconic coloured buildings of Nyhavn

Morning

I woke at 5am local time (4am UK time) on Tuesday morning and got up and drafted the blog post for yesterday and uploaded all yesterday's photos to Flickr. 

I used the coffee bags provided to make coffee for Drew and myself at about 7am, then had a shower. This hotel is very eco-friendly but I must admit that the idea of having two not very bright lights in the bathroom makes the bath at one end and the shower at the other somewhat gloomy. When I'd pulled the shower curtain across to stop wetting the rest of the room, gloomy became dark - luckily I was using my own shower gel and shampoo as I couldn't read the bottles to see which was which of the eco stuff provided by the hotel. Still the shower was pleasantly warm and had my favourite layout of one overhead showerhead and the other showerhead that is flexible, so I could cope in the dark😂. 

Kalvebod

Starting the day gently we headed out at 10am. As it was our first day, we used our normal - let's wander and see what we find - methodology. This paid off really well making for a delightful day. 

Istedgade 

I'd decided that our first direction was to get from the hotel to the canal. I say the, there are so many in this city that I should have said a! Still, walking out of the hotel we walked along Istedgade until we came to the Central Railway Station,

turning right alongside the railway lines we came to Tietgensgade which is one of the roads which bridges the multiple railway lines coming out of the station. Saying there are at least 22 platforms may give you an indication of just how many lines we crossed above. 

From Tietgensgade we turned left onto Bernstorffsgade and came to the large canal at the waterfornt area called Kalvebod Brygge i.e. Kalvebod Quay by the modern Engineering Institute building.

We walked along Kalvebod Brygge looking at the water, the people kayak and swimming in it and the path that stays beside the water and includes a range of strange, semi-human art works known as Inventory.

We crossed the main road (also called Kalvebod Brygge) having seen a coffee shop called Espresso House. This local chain has a good selection of snacks and coffees. 

A side note - we often have full breakfasts while on holiday and it is still possible that we will have a full breakfast on some of the mornings at the hotel, but as breakfast isn't included in the room price (not uncommon in continental hotels) we didn't feel the need to eat a lot this morning after the generous meal at Pho Hanoi the night before. So, we had decided to eat something on the journey, so we stopped at Espresso House for this purpose.

Drew opted for Focaccia with ham and cheese 

while I had a delicious Rye bread with chicken, pickled onions, jalapeño cheese, baby spinach and ajvar (the latter which is a red pepper and aubergine paste which is not uncommon here and has a zingy taste and a gentle texture).

We had a latte and americano to wash them down. 

Slotsholmen

From our breakfast stop we went on via Hans Christian Andersen's boulevard 

to Slotsholmen, the island which has been the centre of Danish government and power since 1167, when the first Castle was built here. 

The island includes the current Christiansborg Palace the Borgen, or Castle, which gives the political TV drama its name. 

The quiet opening that sits beside the Danish War Museum leads through to the amazing square called Rigsdagsgården in which the Christiansborg Palace is located. 

Opposite the Castle is the Garden of the Royal Library with its amazing lake and fountain [Co-pilot's note: and duck house!!]

and statues of the first Existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and the first Danish commoner to be raised to the ruling elite, Peder Griffenfeld.  

The front of the Palace is dominated by a large equestrian statue of King Frederick VII, 

the King who established the constitutional monarchy that Denmark is today. He was succeeded by his cousin Christian VIII, familiar to me through his role (small on TV, large in history) in the Prusso-Danish War of 1864 which saw the end of Danish rule in Schleswig and Holstein, dramatised in the series 1864. 

Christian IV's Gamle Børssal

Across the main road (Slotsholmsgade) from the Christiansborg Palace is the Gamle Børssal (Stock Exchange) of Christian the Fourth. 

Though undergoing renovation at present, it still stands out as a striking building, especially its spire, seen behind the King's statue, which is very distinctive. 

Also distinctive is the statue of King Christian IV which has the spire/tower of both buildings around here pointing down beside him. 

Christian is perhaps best known to British people as the brother of Queen Anne, the consort of James VI of Scotland and I of England.

Knippel's Bridge

While it had been our initial plan to walk across to Holmen's Kirk opposite the Castle, when we walked to the end of the Borse we came to Knippel's Bridge and found the modern bridge to much of a temptation.

The Bridge crosses the canal from Slotsholmen to Christianshavn one of the more bohemian parts of the City.

As we cross, we see one of the ferry buses pulling into the 'bus' stop and Drew reminds me we saw one episode of Nordic Noir where someone was found dead on one of these boats - though we also watched Below the Surface where 15 people were kept hostage on the Copenhagen Metro - so based on our viewing no one would travel anywhere in the City!!

Christianshavn

Christianshavn has a very different feel from the other side of the canal, with lots of coffee shops and bakeries and artists displays it is clearly a part of the city where people live, rather than simply a tourist destination.

We were shortly crossing the Christianshavn canal which is smaller than the main canal we had recently passed over. It has bars on canals along the water and is prettily tree lined.

Though the Christian mentioned in the area's name is the Danish Monarch Christian IV who built these islands on reclaimed land as part of his fortification of the City, the religious Christian community is well represented in the area with two large Danish National Church buildings, both of which we visited.

The first the Church of Our Saviour is spectacular. 

It was built in the 1680s and includes a 1698 organ whose pipes appear to be held aloft by elephants.

There are too many amazing images from inside this Church - if you want to see all of them you are welcome to look at them on Flickr, start here and click/swipe left (there are 32 photos). 

From Our Saviour's Church we walked through the busy streets of the area until coming to Christian's Church 

this large church looks very alien to my Catholic eyes. More like a large auditorium than a church. You can see that it has balconies like a theatre on three of its sides - photos start here on Flickr. It was used by the German Community in the heyday of Denmark's role as a great trading nation. Though its Germanic links died down after a coup d'état in January 1772, when Christian VII's Prussian-born anaesthesiologist and adviser Struensee was deposed and executed, the Ordinance on Immigration was introduced in 1776, this law stipulated that all official positions in the country were to be filled by members born within the Danish monarchy, so Germanic influence and presence declined as did the church here.  

Holmen's Church

We hadn't planned to see so many churches today, but do regularly visit churches so Drew can take photos of stained glass to get the views of our friend and stained-glass enthusiast, Robin. So far stained-glass has been largely absent from the churches we have visited, not suiting the 'evangelical Lutheran' tradition of the Danish National Church. 

As Holmen's Church shows, this lack of stained glass is easily replaced by other art forms - including portraits, fine carved wood and marble.  

The church, converted from a warehouse when the quay was moved further away with the building of the additional islands in 1619 is, as well as a parish church, a church dedicated to the Danish Navy with many signs of the naval tradition including a boat in the centre of the building 

and Admiral's graves outside.  

Again, Flickr has many more (42) photos - start here and swipe/click left.

It was now 1.30pm and though there are many more places for us to visit, it seems appropriate to stop this blog post here and continue into our later visits in another post. 

How to sum up my first morning and early afternoon in Copehagen. Well I wrote a brief note on leaving Holmen's Church before heading on to the rest of the day's exploring - it simply says: "Wow - what a City" and seems to sum up the pleasures of the day.

Velkommen til København - Welcome to Copenhagen

Travelling to Copenhagen

As mentioned in my last post, four weeks ago, this year's holiday is in two parts. The wonderful time we had in Devon in July/August and now, in September, a trip to Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark.

Why Copenhagen

I realise as I reflect on our decision to come on a short break to this City that there are at least three distinct reasons. 

The first, the reason which inspired the trip, was Drew telling me he was getting regular emails inviting him to do the Copenhagen Half Marathon. 

The second was my awareness that Copenhagen has been for the last two decades the go-to place for innovative modern European food. 

The third reason is that for the last decade we have been fans of the genre known generically as 'Nordic Noir' indeed our taste for such TV began not with an authentic Nordic Noir - which might imply some murder or other dark mystery - but with the political drama Borgan, that we began watching on BBC4 tv in February 2012. Having enjoyed Borgan so much we continued to look out for Danish (and Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic) TV and in the Danish tradition we have watched The Killing, The Bridge, Below the Surface, Follow the Money, Darkness – Those Who Kill and others I can't immediately recall. With all these programmes based in Copenhagen (though in the case of the Bridge also in Malmo, Sweden) it feels to me like I know this City even before I came to visit. So, I look forward to seeing how the reality matches with the expectations built up by TV of a pretty City with many canals and waterways.

The Journey to Copenhagen

As usual on days we are travelling I wake up early, it was 3.30am UK time. We had already packed everything bar the  last-minute items, like our toothbrushes, so I used the time to catch up with emails and listen to some podcasts on BBC Sounds. 

We left the house at 8.40am for the 8.48am 132 bus to Cardiff. The bus arrived a few minutes late. We had a pleasant journey down to Blackweir then a delightful walk through Bute Park, which is still bright and fresh even after the heat of this summer. The last few days of light rain seems to have revived the plants and trees. 

We arrived at the National Express bus station in Sophia Gardens at 9.45am ready for our 10.30am coach - yes, we are always early. [Co-pilots note: I just follow him, so I'm always early because he is!!]

We boarded the bus and were on our way to Bristol Airport with Drew reading his Kindle and me listening to some downloaded podcasts. 

We arrived at the Airport exactly on time at Midday and went straight to EasyJet bag drop, which worked simply and easily - once we worked out to hold the phone screen up not down for their machine, amusingly we had to hold it down at the gates to security. 

We were through security in ten minutes, the usual issue of taking laptops and kindles out of bags, but that was no different to before COVID. Just remembering the processes that used to be so familiar, but which we have not done for over 3 years was the challenge. 

We headed to Starbucks for lunch, sausage butty and an americano for me and ham and cheese panini with Dijon mustard and a latte for Drew. 

The gate announcement happened, as planned, at 2pm so far so good! A short stroll to the gate and we were bused to the plane.  After the horror stories of the last few months (including of two friends in the last seven days) it was good to get to board the plane and leave a couple of minutes after time at 3:00pm. 

We land at 5.55pm CET (an hour later than UK BST). Given the pandemic period this is our first time flying to Europe since Brexit. So it was no surprise to find a long queue for 'all passports' compared to the EU, EEA, CH line which was short and fast moving. At times it was completely clear. By 6.25pm we were through passport control and had a stamp on our passports for the first time in ages (though common when travelling to the US or Canada, this had ceased to be a thing when we had free movement into the EU).

We were at bag collection by 6.30pm and thankfully, given our previous history of bags which have often travelled to more exotic places than us, were both there.

We went straight out of the airport and on to the Metro system. We had earlier purchased on our DOT app a City Pass (five day ticket for all buses, trains and metros in the City) so used it to travel along the M2 line to Kongens Nytorv station then on to the M4 line to København H, the metro station beside the Central Station in København. 

We only had to walk one block (100 metres) to the entrance to our hotel - the Axel Guldsmeden on Colbjørnsensgade.

We arrived at 7.15pm and were greeted enthusiastically by the receptionist who gave us a run-down of the hotel services and then told us the way to our room, I quote: "go out through the garden door, across the garden and into the building at the opposite side of the garden, the lift is on the left" It was to dark to take photos of the garden, but I'm sure some will appear as the week goes on. 

We are in block 2 room 215 in the hotel. A lovely room, with a balcony. 

We spent some time unpacking and becoming familiar with the room's many eco-logical features (sorry, but I'm using my electric toothbrush and not the chewy tabs and bamboo sticks provided!).

Dinner

We headed out for dinner at 8pm. Drew had suggested he fancied some Pho, well we seem to be in the perfect place for it, as the area around our hotel has three Pho restaurants along with a wide range of Chinese and Japanese eating places.  

We opted for Pho Hanoi, which was up a block and across the major road - Vesterbrogade. This road gives this part of the City, Vesterbro, its name. 

The restaurant was very busy but had a seat for the two of us. While the table we were on was closer to other tables than we might have been comfortable with in Covid days, it was a perfect place to pick up the lively vibe of the city.

Drew began his meal with Pork Spring Rolls with fish sauce, the rolls were crispy and much lighter than equivalent ones we have had in the UK.

I had Fried Wanton with chicken and prawns with a sweet chilli sauce, these were plumb and delicious. The sweet chilli sauce was for less sweet and much more chilli rich than I have had before. Perfect for my tastebuds.

For Mains we both opted for Pho. Drew going for the Pho Hanoi Ga (ga meaning chicken) 

while I went with the Pho Hanoi Special (which had beef and meatballs) 

As is conventional in Pho restaurants the pho was served with a herb and bean sprout side with fresh chillis and limes - the herbs included, basil, coriander and parsley along with saw coriander, a form of the herb I don't remember eating before, with its much stronger coriander flavour.

Both phos were fresh, flavoursome and delicious. The introduction of the herbs and chills really zinged up the flavours - absolutely delicious. 

We got back to the hotel via a 7-11 store, to buy a bottle of soft drink each, and after a day of busy, though thankfully successful, travel were both tired enough to go to bed at 10pm CST.