Baker European Tour: Third day in Denmark

Hello blog readers,

I know it's been quite a while now -- more than 2 months, in fact -- since my family was here, and you've seen some of Amanda's more recent posts about the trips that we took in September, but I still have to write something about the last half of our time in Denmark back in August.  I know that some folks in our family have been waiting a while to see a few pictures from this part of the trip, so my apologies for the long delay in posting something.

You'll recall from the original Denmark post that our family had four full days to spend in the country, and we mostly spent the first two driving to various places on the mainland peninsula (Jutland) and the island of Fyn, where Odense and H.C. Andersen's are located.  Our last two days in Denmark were spent exclusively on the island of Sjaelland, which is where the capital city of Copenhagen is located and where more than a third of Denmark's population lives.  This island is also where some of the country's most well-known attractions and historical sites are located (many of them in Copenhagen).  We definitely didn't have time to visit more than a small subset of the most interesting places; I'd like to go back to see some of the places that we missed this time, but we'll have to see whether Amanda and I have the time for that before we move back to the US. Still, we managed to see quite a few of the highlights; this post will cover our third day in the country, since we have lots of pictures and comments to share (and Amanda doesn't like it when I write a novel here in a single post :). 

The morning began with a quick car ride into the center of Copenhagen.  We parked our car just down the street from Christiansborg Palace, which is the seat of Denmark's national government.  This is actually the only building in the world that houses all three of a country's branches of governments (thanks for the tip, Wikipedia!), and I had hoped to be able to take a tour.  Unfortunately, I was overruled by the rest of the family on this particular point, but we still got some nice pictures of the outside of the building.

A view of Christiansborg Palace, Denmark's seat of government

We started walking toward our first official stop of the day -- the Round Tower -- but there was a minor matter of business to address first: breakfast.  We were lucky that there was a very well-stocked Danish bakery just a few steps away (see the Street View), and we all lined up to collect a few items from the selection of delicious pastries and breads available there.  I'm big on sweet foods and baked goods in particular, and I can give a strong endorsement to this bakery: the pastries were by far the best I've had in Europe (yes, including France), and possibly the best I've tried anywhere.  Too bad we can't get one of those bakeries near us here in Zurich, and maybe another one in California for when we go back.  The price of food in Denmark was about on par with what we've seen here in Switzerland -- which is to say, it's outrageously expensive at most places -- but I would say the quality was generally a bit higher.

With everyone's hunger now sated by cream-jam-and-frosting-covered items from the bakery, we headed up the street to the Round Tower.  This is an old astronomical observatory built into a tower that is connected to the end of a church.  Though the tower itself is not incredibly distinctive from the outside, we wanted to visit because it's a great place to get a view across the central part of Copenhagen.  We enjoyed walking up the spiral ramp to get to the top; supposedly the ramp was built to allow a horse and carriage to drive up to deliver scientific instruments to the observatory (as well as books to the university library that formerly existed in part of the tower).

The Round Tower, crammed into downtown Copenhagen's dense streets

Everyone heading up the spiral ramp that leads to the top of the tower

A view of Copenhagen's rooftops from the tower; the rounded thing on the right edge is the apse of Vor Frue Kirke

Amanda connecting with her roots at this small diorama about Tycho Brahe, the famous Danish astronomer

After heading down from the tower, we walked a few minutes to get to the Vor Frue Kirke.  This church is known to many Danes as the national cathedral of Denmark, but it's more famous to many non-Danish Christians (and especially to many Mormons) as the home of the original Christus statue, which was created by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen.  Large replicas of this statue now stand in the LDS visitor's center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City, as well as in other visitor's centers around the world.  The statue was certainly a beautiful sight, and I was also very impressed by the statues (also by Thorvaldsen) of the Twelve Apostles that line the sides of the nave. 

Me and Amanda in front of the Christus statue

Statues of the original apostles along the pillars of the nave; the left-most one here in John

The main entrance and tower of the Vor Frue Kirke

We still had several well-known Copenhagen sites on our list, but it took a bit longer to reach these on foot.  On our way out of the main downtown neighborhoods, we walked along a few of the most famous streets in Scandinavia.  First was Strøget, which is the longest pedestrian shopping area in Europe.  There are (obviously) tons of stores along this street, including many global brands, but some of the most interesting are the ones that are uniquely Danish: a huge Lego store (of course) and the Royal Copenhagen porcelain store.  My grandparents have a lot of Danish porcelain -- several sets of china that we frequently used at holiday parties when I was younger, as well as a large collection of the decorative Christmas plates issued annually -- and it was interesting to see the large selection of beautiful (but very expensive) items on display at the royal factory's flagship store.  The next street we found was Nyhavn, which is a street with a small inlet from the ocean.  You'll probably recognize the picture of this street, as it makes onto the covers of many Denmark travel guides.  The bright colors and the many old boats docked along the water seem characteristically Scandinavian to me; though this wasn't on the official itinerary, I was glad that we happened onto it while walking.  I believe that this place even has a family connection for us: according to my mom, the restaurant where my great-grandfather worked as a chef years ago was right along this street.

Looking down the busy shopping street of Strøget

A famous image from Copenhagen: the multi-colored buildings and sailing ships along Nyhavn

The family at Nyhavn

The next stop on our itinerary was Amalienborg Palace.  This is one of the official residences of the Danish royal family, and they have guards here that are similar to the ones that stand in front of Buckingham Palace in London.  My mom and sisters were interested in seeing the changing of the guard, and fortunately we arrived just as it was starting.  (We were also fortunate that this ceremony was not mobbed quite as badly as the one in London, which we skipped earlier in the year because of the crowds.)  I'm not big on rigid processes myself -- especially for ones that still exist primarily for show -- so I'm not sure that I would have the patience to be part of this guard force, but it's interesting to see how the tradition continues.

Part of the Amalienborg Palace complex, where the Danish royal family lives in winter

One of the bearskin-hatted guards standing his post

Next we headed further northeast along the edge of the harbor to see the famous Little Mermaid statue.  The statue was commissioned in the early 20th century in honor of Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale.  It's surprisingly small and there's not much to do there except to try taking a picture that doesn't include hordes of other tourists, but it's always fun to say you've seen something that you've seen in pictures and known as one of the distinctive sights of Copenhagen.

The famous Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen harbor (actually, it's right next to the land)

At this time I think that we were starting to get fairly tired of walking, but we were far from done.  Even my mom couldn't complain about the distances, since the next destination was a place that she really wanted to see: the neighborhood where my grandfather lived as a child.  He had given us some pictures and an address beforehand so we knew just where to go to see his old school and apartment building.  By some crazy coincidence, there was a person entering the apartment building right when we arrived outside the front door; we explained the situation and showed him the picture that my grandfather gave us, and he replied in astonishment, "That's my apartment!"  He was very friendly (and like any good modern Scandinavian, spoke excellent English), and he let us inside for a few minutes to take a look around the apartment.  He commented that he and his wife had one child with another on the way, and they were thinking of moving to a more spacious place; I guess that shows how sensibilities (and economic circumstances) have changed over the decades, since my grandfather's family lived for years in the same space with 5 or 6 children.

The building where my grandfather attended elementary school

The street in Copenhagen where he lived

The front door to his family's old apartment (generously shown to us by the current tenant in this apartment)

Mom in front of the apartment building.  The blue door is the main entrance to the building and courtyard; the first ground-floor window to the right of the door is a stairwell, and the next two windows are for the living room of the apartment where his family lived.

At this point it was still only mid-afternoon, but we were pretty tired, especially since we had to hoof it back to the city center to pick up our car.  On our way back we managed to pass by Rosenborg Castle, the home of Denmark's crown jewels, but we didn't have enough time to go inside.  Perhaps on a future visit.

Mom and Dad in front of Rosenborg Castle

Glamour shot of Amanda in the large park where Rosenborg Castle is located (she likes to get her picture taken with nice green backgrounds :)

After finally arriving back at the car, it was time to drive out to Roskilde, where my mom's Aunt Lene and Uncle Knud live.  They were gracious enough to invite us to their house for dinner.  Before heading there, however, we decided to pay a visit to the Viking Ship Museum just a mile or two from their place.  This was high on my dad's list of sights to see in Denmark.  The museum's centerpiece is a collection of the remains of five excavated Viking ships that were deliberately sunk in Roskilde fjord almost a thousand years ago as a defense against other Vikings who were launching a ship-based attack against the city, which was one of the largest and most important in Denmark at the time.  The ships are on display, but the museum also includes some "live action" exhibits like those at Colonial Williamsburg and similar places, where the staff demonstrate how the Vikings practiced ropemaking, sailmaking, woodworking, ship construction, and other such activities.  I wasn't blown away by the experience, but it was definitely interesting and worth a short visit (which was all that we had time for anyway).

Ryan wanted an up-close look at this reconstruction of a Viking ship.

Part of one of the Viking ships excavated from the bottom of Roskilde fjord.

Finally, it was time for dinner.  Lene and Knud were extremely gracious hosts, and though their home was small, it was in immaculate condition and reminded me strongly of my grandmother's house in its decor and overall feeling.  Unfortunately I didn't get any decent pictures of our dinner, but we really enjoyed being able to spend some time with them, both during dinner and afterward (when we watched some old home movies of my grandma's family and my mom engaged in her favorite pastime of looking through pictures and keeping a few to add to her genealogy collection).  We finally managed to pull ourselves away in the late evening for the drive back to the hotel in Copenhagen, but not before we arranged to meet Lene and Knud again the following evening in the city for a final goodbye dinner.  That and the rest of the last day's activities will be chronicled in the next gripping episode... which will appear at some indefinite time in the future, depending on how much free time I have in the next few days and weeks.  :)