When we are alone in any city we like to explore different areas of the city as we will do the most important tourist sites with our visiting house guests. We have around two weeks in Copenhagen when we are completely alone. This is a series of sequential pictures of our wanderings so there is a bit of repetition.
First day alone after the Braverman’s left we took a walk for Jim to get a haircut and Sandy explored some of Freetown Christiania which is an intentional community and anarchist commune.It is a fascinating place inhabited mostly by hippy artisans.This is a vegetarian restaurant which always emanates very lovely aromas.We will definitely take a tour with one of the locals and report back later. This blog is a combination of activities that we have done on our own between guests visiting.Our friend’s Shelia and Jim McArdle gave us recommendations from their daughter’s trip to Copenhagen and one was Kodbyens Fiskebar in the Meat Packing District. We walked from Christiania to the restaurant which was another 2.5 miles for us. The restaurant was quite good and we would recommend giving it a try. We enjoyed these oysters and Bloody Marys as a starter.While son Matt and family went to Tivoli Amusement Park with their children we did a guided tour of Copenhagen City Hall. Pictured here is the Great Hall. It was really fun to see so many brides and grooms coming in to get married. The ceremony takes a mere 10 minutes and occurs in the Wedding Hall which is the upper balcony in this photo. Wait time for an appointment can take up to four months.The current city hall was designed by architect Martin Nyrop who was inspired by the town halls of Italy, specifically Sienna. It took 13 years to complete. The National Romantic features shine through the building-from the richly decorated exterior to the detailed interior with many hidden gems in everything from murals to stair railings.Ornate carved hand railings with figures depicting the cities craftsmen.City Hall Garden where wedding parties can gather after the brief ceremony.We climbed the 300 stairs of the city hall tower. This was the final flight to the top.Some views from the top.Tivoli Gardens where our family was this day. The roller coaster is at the far left.Our apartment building is seen in the background below the second windmill to the left. Our penthouse corner unit can be seen from almost any elevated building in the city.Hans Christian Andersen statue at city hall plaza.This is the King of Denmark’s royal yacht.This is a one room “hotel” which is a floating pod crafted entirely of reclaimed materials tucked away in a quiet harbor very near our home. One nights stay will cost you 2600kr or $401.63 USD.We did a tour of the Opera House which is the most modern opera house in the world. It was designed by Henning Larsen and funded by the owner of Maersk International shipping. There were many clashes among the two men regarding the design. It is located on the Island of Holmen in Copenhagen’s inner harbor.The building faces the Marble Church and Royal Palaces directly across the water. The exact center of the Opera House intentionally lines up perfectly with both.This is a secondary audtorium for events needing a very small venue.Back stage changing rooms.This is the main auditorium with a seating capacity of 1,710 including 56 standing spots that are offered at greatly reduced prices.The Royal Box shown here (at the end of the bottom balcony) is not “center stage” as the Danish Royals feel the people of Denmark should be entitled to the best seats in the house plus these seats enable most of the audience to see them..The Opera house began construction in 2001 and inaugurated in 2005. The main stage utilizes a Pinion Drive stage wagon system, allowing for glide free movement of large set pieces and a circular horizon that can be raised up to five meters to access the stage area.This Opera house is also one of the most expensive Opera houses ever built at a cost of 2,5 billion danish kroners or $370,000,000.The ceiling is adorned with 105,000 sheets of 24 carat gold leafThe walls are clad in maple wood. There are 14 floors of which 5 are below ground mostly for parking and four are a box on the roof which is the dimensions of the stage to allow for sets to be lifted up and down into the hidden space above..Three light fixtures by Olafur Eliasson consist of overlapping spirals adorned with dichroic glass triangles creating a dramatic color effect which reflects its ambient lighting and colors.Unfortunately there are no performances while we are here.We showed up for a tour of Freetown Christiania given by a 70 year old artist who has lived there for 14 years. He gave us a 2 hour walking tour with fascinating fun facts about himself and his current home here.There are a total of 850 people who live here spread over about 19 acres. This was at the end of the tour where we all gave him 100DKK per person, about $16USD.Freetown Christiania is a unique and self proclaimed autonomous neighborhood which was established in 1971 by a group of hippies who occupied an abandoned military barracks to create a community based on principals of freedom, self governance and community living.Its Main Street was Pusher Street and was famous for its open illegal trade of cannabis as well as other mind altering drugs up until 2024 when it was shut down in a collaborative effort between police and the majority of inhabitants. The cobblestone street was physically dug up as a symbolic gesture marking the end of the open drug market which created much violence and caused many deaths from overdoses and murders from opposing gang members.Today the neighborhood is known for its vibrant bohemian atmosphere with colorful murals and eclectic architecture, reflecting the creativity of its residents.Christiania is considered to be the fourth largest tourist attraction in Copenhagen.The three yellow circles on red in this picture and the one above is Christiania’s trademark. It represents the dots over the three I’s in the word Christiania.Random street art.There is a great demand to live here and when a home becomes available the applicants are interviewed by a committee to make sure they are a good fit for the community. Homes are not owned by the inhabitants. Many of the initial houses built by the hippies were very primitive and had no electricity or plumbing. Today those houses are being greatly upgraded at the expense of whoever is allowed to occupy it but they never grow any equity as they are not owners.This house was made entirely from recycled materials.Another Christiania home with a tree problem and solution.This is another good example of a home built with recycled materials. Jim loves all the different colors.Christiania is divided by a canal. It would take about 2.5 hours to walk the whole neighborhood.We came across this while walking in Christiania. Looks like some sort of protest against Capital Punishment. You can zoom in to see what is a make shift electric chair facing a mirror. What is your interpretation?This is the ferry aka boat bus we often take to various destinations. Other times we walk or take the bus depending on where our day takes us.Hans Christian Andersen lived in this house located in Nyhavn or so a sign and a picture say..Or maybe in this one as there is a plaque on the first floor up with his name on it.We enjoy watching the cruise ships from our living room window. They show up early morning and depart in the evening.And we have also had one Naval boat.This is another view from our living room window showing another docking area for cruise boats. We have seen at least five on the busiest days.
This video shows college graduates celebrating. Their fun tradition is that they wear a sailor hat for about a week or so after their last exam so people will stop and congratulate them. There are some traditions connected to the hat also where the students document inside the cap all the crazy things they did during their time in school, like drinking a case of beer in a 24 hour period.We decided this day to explore the multicultural diverse neighborhood of Norrebro.Superkilen Park is a public space in Norrebro which opened in 2012 with a vision to create a park that was like a world exhibition filled with interesting things from around the world that would bring people together. There are smooth open spaces popular with skateboarders.A basketball court surrounded by skateboarding walls.A Bull sculpture from SpainA black Octopus slide from Japan.A donut shop sign from the USASuperkilen runs about 750 meters featuring 108 art pieces or artifacts from 60 different countries. It is representative of the diversity of its neighborhood. We enjoyed our time here and ended up having a Cambodian stew at a small cafe.As you know from our blogs we love climbing towers so another challenge for us was to climb the 400 year old Round Tower. It was relatively easy as it is a spiral ramp that winds 7 ½ times around a hollow core that leads to a short set of stairs which takes you out onto a viewing platform for a spectacular 360 degree view of the city. Jim remembered doing a similar climb in Seville up La Giralda which is the bell tower of the Seville Cathedral. This tower is 114 feet while La Giralda was 341 feet. Both feature spiral ramps which allowed for horses and carriage to go up it.The Round Tower is Europe’s oldest functioning observatory building. King Christian IV had it constructed so that astronomers from the University of Copenhagen could observe stars high above the city lights.View through the tower windowView from the observatory platform.Once again we can spot our home from almost any elevated place in the city.The Round Tower is attached to Trinity Church where we hope to attend a concert some day.As mentioned in a previous blog we climbed this tower in the Church of Our Saviour one of our first days here.Swan and cygnets in our canal.
This is just a selection of things that we have done in Copenhagen during our time alone. We love just wandering and discovering because we encounter lovely off the beaten path locations and we feel much more like a local.
People often ask us if we don’t miss having a home. Our answer to that is “we are at home wherever we are”. We have written about moving in and nesting. We also need more down time than we used to and during the down time we read and listen to world news, we compete with each other on the daily New York Times Crosswords, Wordle and Connections and we do Jigsaw puzzles. We also binge watch TV series as Jim has figured out how to trick the apps into thinking we are in the US and have a local TV provider. We feel very fortunate to be able to experience so many different homes around the world and yet; yes we do miss our five different homes of our children in the USA. Despite enjoying “downtime” we recover quickly and become eager to welcome a new set of guests. Our friends from London Sigi and Paul are next to arrive and we cannot wait and are so grateful they have found time in their busy work life to have fun with us and make more wonderful memories together in Denmark, so their visit will be our next blog.
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