Royalty and Tulips

The brooder

Day 2

Today started with our city tour.  We stopped at the Carlsberg Glypotek to see the brooder statue.  And if you're thinking, hmm, doesn't Carlsberg make beer, you would be correct.  The beer makers in Denmark are big supporters of the arts and Carlsberg contributes a hefty amount of their profit to the arts, hence an art museum.  They had lovely gardens and a variety of statues around the building to enjoy for free.

Royal reception room

The tour also included the Royal reception rooms of Christiansborg Palace.  These are the actual reception rooms and are quite amazing.  We even had to wear little blue booties to protect the floors.  The rooms aren't overly ornate and covered with gold leaf but are more simple and seem to have a big focus on animal motifs.  I'll be honest, I knew that Denmark has a royal family, but I don't really know much more than that sadly.  The Danes are very prolific as a royal family and as such have married into nearly every other royal family in Europe, including France, Russia and the rest of Scandinavia.  Although now, as with most other modern royal families, they tend to marry commoners.

Changing of the guard, tourists were finally out of the way

We saw the uber famous Little Mermaid Statue.  Hans Christian Andersen lived in Copenhagen and wrote many of his fairytales here so they really do enjoy promoting him.  He has roads named after him along with a few statues and constant mentions of which house on Nyhavn canal he lived in.  Little Mermaid is the most popular attraction in Copenhagen, and all she is, is a metal statue a little out of the way in the harbour.  She has sustained some damage over the years.  She was decapitated and they never did recover her original head but made a new one.  A drunk guy ripped her arm off once but turned himself into the police and they repaired her.  And in 2010 they sent her to China for the World Expo, which made people angry and sad to find only a display with a picture of her in China and a board saying where she was at the moment.

Little mermaid in all her glory

Amalienborg Palace is where the guards are located.  They have a museum there, and homes for a few of the members of the family.  They do a regular changing of the guard, which is always a novelty to see.  I am aware of the touch of the monarchy in Canada but it's limited to are money and locations given the term "royal" along with a very occasional visit.  The changing of the guards was full of pomp and all that like like always.  My personal favorite with this change is that there were 3 locations the guards stand and all were changed.  Only most of the tourists didn't realize this and were having to quickly get out of the way of the guards marching to the next location as they were not stopping or moving for anyone in their way.

Spiral Church

After all that excitement I was on my own for the rest of the day.  I headed across one of the canals to the Church of our Savior.  It has quite an astonishing exterior.  The spiral spire climbs far above the surrounding city and has a counter clockwise staircase you can climb up.  Climbing it was my plan, only I arrived to find it closed due to the wind that day.  So probably for the best.  The rest of the church was on the plainer side.  But that tower certainly stands out.

Leaving Christiania

Near the church is the Freetown of Christiania.  They have declared themselves an independent state.  In fact, when you leave their sign says 'You are now entering the EU'.  In all reality this is really just a, for a lack of better word, a hippie area.  They've all banded together and are left alone to do what they want.  Which mostly means they build all sorts of strange houses for themselves.  And have a green light district.  And yes, you've guessed correctly, they sell pot there.  Because of that they highly discourage pictures.  They do try to be a little discreet with all the booths selling but I get the impression that it is the big draw for people to visit.  It was a strange little area to visit.  I didn't really wander too much as I wasn't there for the drugs and the houses weren't as interesting as some of the guidebooks made them out to be.

Exterior of Round Tower

I headed back to Stroget street to climb the Round tower.  It's an old lookout tower that was also used as an observatory, and still is.  The amusing part about it is that the interior is a giant ramp on the inside.  So no stairs to climb to get to the top!  I believe it is 7 1/2 turns around the tower to get to the top.  There were some good views from up there of the city.

Crazy ramps on inside of tower

Close by the Round tower is Rosenborg Castle.  They have a lot of castles here.  But the Danish spent centuries invading and absorbing other countries so they had a lot of power in the earlier years.  Rosenborg isn't used anymore and holds the crown jewels.  You can tour the entire building as well as the jewels.  They do have armed guards at the doors to the treasury.  And none by the exit from the treasury on the other side of the building...  The rooms were interesting to see and hear some of the history of them.  The jewels were okay, it was mostly a few crowns and some swords.  I enjoyed touring the house more.

Rosenborg castle, nobody would
get out of my way for the picture

After this I headed back to the room for a break.  Included in the days tour was a visit to Tivoli, the famous amusement park in Copenhagen.  Instead of making everyone go in a big group, which would have been tough seeing as how they had a few excursions planned that included dinner, we were all given a ticket and free to go when we wanted.  I decided to wait to see the lights turn on.  And ended up having a nap, but had good timing as if I hadn't have waited I would have been there while it poured rain.  But it did mean that it was on the quieter side with the earlier rainfall keeping people away.  I didn't end up staying for the lights coming on as it gets darker there a lot later than here and I was impatient and didn't want to wait for another hour and some to see the lights come on.

Tivoli is an amusement park in the middle of the city.  Many of the rides are very familiar to Disneyland only they are mostly confined to what our guide called the loud corner.  They have a huge selection of restaurants, many falling into the fine dining category and a little on the pricey side.

Gardens of Tivoli

What I really enjoyed was the gardens.  They had lovely plantings everywhere.  Including a lot of tulips.  I mostly just wandered the place and watched some of the rides and enjoyed the gardens.  They did have a few stages with people performing, I think one was some sort of religious choir practicing.  They even have an arena in there, for anyone interested Snoop Dogg will be there in the near future.  There were still a few groups of teenagers enjoying the upside down rollercoasters, but the rain kept people away.

I must say, my feet have seen a lot of Copenhagen, and the weather warmed up so all in all it was a pretty good way to spend a day!  And now tomorrow the group is off to Norway, via Sweden.  Should be an interesting travel day.