Travelogue: Copenhagen day 1

 It’s shameful that I only blog about my trips when DH isn’t with me…

This Bee was as big as the 
end of my thumb

I arrived in Copenhagen on Monday night… The airport baggage claim was overflowing with large wagons of baggage and I couldn’t figure out why… Were they staging it for tours or cruises? Can you book your luggage straight through to a cruise? I’m fascinated. At any rate, everything went well so I have no real complaints.

I’m staying at the Hotel Denmark; it’s around the corner from Tivoli Gardens and next to the National History Museum. It’s a nice hotel but a little too hip for me; also no AC (although I think there’s a fan) and is pretty noisy with the windows open. Restaurant choices in the area are pretty touristy

Viking weaving tablets, weaving sword, etc

Tuesday I visited the National Museum; they have a fantastic antiquities floor full of Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek and Roman artifacts in great condition. The collection was purchased by one of the Kings on a trip to Europe and previously the collection on an Italian Bishop. There were a number of exhibits on Danish pre-history, Viking era, early church and reformation, and colonial period, including the straight ahead message that Denmark was in fact the 7th largest slave trading country; St.Thomas in fact was Danish for a number of years. 

Awesome name for a haunted
cruise ship

There were a lot of spindle whorls, loom weights, and other weaving artifacts in the museum… Also a few very old wool textiles, and some nice knitted objects (post 1600s) and some older naalbinding. It didn’t say, but I think they must have been found in bogs. The weaving looked to be primarily twill. I also went through the Viking Sorceress Exhibit which presented some mythology and anthropological silliness followed by a large exhibit of Viking artifacts.

I went to check out the armor on this horse and rider, and the horse snorted at me! Scared the heck out of me.  Then it continued to make horse noises… There are a large number of paintings and sculptures featuring dragons, as well. Later I had a cardamon bun at the cafe, really really good.

Loud horse

I spent about 2 and a half hours at the museum then started walking…

I walked through the Christiansborg castle (The Borgen) and thought I’d recognized some spaces from the series… The horsey smelling Royal Stables are there as well as a couple other tourable spaces; I didn’t go in.

My route took me through Nyhavn, which was crowded full of tourists.. really lovely but might be better off season. 

Scenic Nyhavn

I saw the Copenhill, a current obsession, on the other side of the water. It’s a state of the art clean burning trash reclamation site (that’s just steam coming out the top); the slope on the left side is an artificial ski slope, there’s a bar at the top, and other recreation facilities… And it’s supposed to not smell like a dump. I'd like to visit it on my next trip.

Copenhill (why can’t we do this?)

On the way, I passed the Queens’s Winter Palace, a dock with multiple mega yachts anchored, and a star shaped park; I didn’t stop at any of them.  At the end of the walk, within site of 3 or 4 floating skyscraper tour boars, covered in tourists and flanked by tour busses, the little mermaid. It took some tricky maneuvering to get her without tourists…

Ariel! Don’t follow the guy!!!

On the way back to the hotel, I passed by another royal palace that had the crown jewels; the National Gallery and a bunch of train stations. Dinner was at Puk (pronounced pook), a Danish restaurant; I had a beet and cheese salad, and turbot with potoatoes. The thunderstorm that rolled through while I was eating cleared enough for me to get back to the hotel without getting wet… All in all, a good day.

More photos here.