Travel (II) - Europe 1 - Copenhagen, Denmark

Click here to view some pictures in Copenhagen 



Europe has been on my dream destination list for long.  Finally, one more dream is becoming true!  :-)

The journey began on April 8th, and my return flight is on April 26th.  The entire itinerary look like this JFK => Copenhagen => Hamburg => Lubeck => Amsterdam => Brussels => Bruges => Luxembourg => Athens => Santorini => Crete => JFK.  My travel buddies are Athena and P, the latter will bail after Bruges.

April 8th evening, P and I boarded the Delta flight from JFK to Copenhagen, to join Athena who was already in Copenhagen for her business.  After chatting extensively about the blue pill and red bill option (as in the matrix), death, the gap between ideal and the reality, and debating on "ignorance is bliss", and free will and choices in life, we obviously needed something to shut us up so that we get a couple of hours sleep before our first full day tour.  With deep suspicion and reluctance, P took his first melatonin pill after I took my first in life.  It kind of worked, fortunately.

After we opened our eyes and had a sandwich, we were already above Denmark.  It's a splendidly sunny early spring morning.  1500 feet below us, it's vast flat land, covered entirely by irregularly divided greens, with white windmills, casually spinning, randomly scattered around in small group of 3 to 6.  Islands, big and small, are embedded in clear blue water.  Residence was far from being dense until we reached Copenhagen.   I could already sense the peaceful and casual and relaxing atmosphere in this northern European city.  There is only music flowing in my body that moment - Yes, this is how it should feel when one dream becomes true.

Denmark, for many Chinese, is a fairy tale kingdom.  We grew up with reading many fairy tales by Anderson.  With the Little Mermaid Statue visited Shanghai World Expo last year for 6 months, which is her first journey in her entire life of 100 years or so, I am guessing that more Chinese are enchanted by Anderson's stories.  Besides this, I honestly did not know much about it until I read and chatted with people for this trip.  

I am on a train from Copenhagen to Hamburg.  Concluding a 2-day brief visit in Copenhagen, I'd say of the city the main impression is laid back, very nice people, early close of stores, beautiful typical European style architecture, some vibrantly colorful buildings, lots and lots of windows on almost every wall, no sight of high-rises, lots of bicycles, and convenient transportation.  The major turn-offs are that there are too many construction sites in the city, and it's very hard to get US credit card approved in many places.

On our first day, we visited Stroget (Europe's longest shopping mall), Christiansborg (an old palace), stock exchange (an interesting piece of architecture), Kogens Nytorv (a colorful 17th century waterfront), took a boat tour, and then strolled around in the Norreport neighborhood (supposedly the city center where our hotel is located).

My favorite is no doubt Kogens Nytorv.  Canals, sailing boats, colorful 17th century buildings, plenty of outdoor cafes and bars with all sorts of potted blooming flowers on tables, live music performed by some small bands here and there, relaxed people sitting there for hours and hours, together with the brilliant sunshine that day, nothing beats it as a typical northern European street scene.  We found a table luckily, with some efforts, right in front of a 3-man saxphone-drum band.  Ordered bunch of dishes labelled as "traditional Danish" and they turn out to be raw herrings marinated in different flavors, shrimp, chicken, all sweet and sour.  That did not work very well for us although I liked raw herring.  I heard the peak season for raw herring is May-Octobor where the flesh is at its sweetest.  It's also a signature dish in Amsterdam, maybe we'll try some more there.

The boat tour pretty much covers the entire water front.  We saw many buildings converted to residential from navy properties.  An array of barrack looking warehouses were said to be where Danes hiding their warships from being confiscated by Napoleon.  Some splendid architectures such as the Opera, the Black Diamond (royal library), and Blue Eyes (the biggest shipping company ) are very pleasant to my eyes.  The boat also went into narrow canals in normal residential areas where we could have a peak into locals' life.

Next day morning after a quick breakfast at the hotel, we rushed to Rosenborg Castle and King's Garden, where the march of royal guards began at 11:27am and they would proceed to Amalienborg Palace, where Queen Mary and her family are living now, to perform "change of guard" at noon.  With the cheering march music played by a royal band and a royal guard squad marching seriously in interesting uniforms, we, a silly and happy crowd, were walking along, and from time to time ran around to take pictures and videos.  It was quite a long march and long ceremony that lasted for around an hour, and I had a very good time.  Royal families in modern societies still have their mysterious appeal.  One might argue it's a waste of taxpayers' income to sponsor such an existence; others might argue that they in a way help to attract tourists.  Amalienborg is a very nice group of mansions.  I think I would not like to have hundreds or thousands of tourists visiting my home everyday if I were among the royal family.  But it seems like they are doing what they can to accommodate tourists.

A nice 15-minute walk along the waterfront to the north of Amalienborg, there stands the most known attraction in all of Denmark: the Little Mermaid reminiscing over her lost childhood in the sea.  Anderson's story is more of a melancony than Disney version.  It's in fact a very small size statue, not much bigger than the size of an adult.  It's a donation to Denmark from the son of Carlsberg's founder.  

After all these fairy-tale events, we landed in a different world : Christiania, the free town.  It's a green hippie village in the city - loved by many and hated by some.  I bumped into an article about it a couple of years ago, and was very much impressed by its no-law-no-government-no-police kind of status.  Before this trip I was determined to stop by and take a look myself.  Only till I came to Copenhagen did I know that it's actually one of Denmark's biggest tourist attractions nowadays.  Strolling around in the village, one could see a lot of wall art including but not limited to graffiti, one could see all sorts of interesting people living a life there, junk statues (made from disposed goods), art museum, and not surprisingly open market of drug dealing.  I chatted with a local shop owner.  She said she likes living there.  Many people go there either because it's cheap living there or to "Bevar Christiania", i.e. "save Christiania", to keep the existence of it, which is printed on many souvenir T-shirts.  I asked what it takes for people to be admitted to live there.  She showed me the map of the entire village, and pointed where her house is located.  She said the entire village is divided into a few regions.  When a house is emptied, candidate may submit application and present to the regional residents why he/she wants to live there etc, and all residents will vote to decide if he/she is welcome.  She also told me that the name "Chistianaia" has nothing to do with the religion.  In another shop, an elder guy told me their symbol of three yellow dots on red background represent "faith, love, hope" (on internet, I found many claim that three dots are from three i's in Christiania.  Not sure).  A very interesting visit.  I purchased a guide book there and will read more about it.

Taking a train at the central station in Copenhagen to Hamburg, we finished the first part of our trip.