16th Oct - Copenhagen a Party Town
Well after a few days driving through Northern Germany we arrived in Copenhagen and managed to briefly meet our houseswap couple who are lovely. The place is decorated really simply with a lot of white walls and the furniture sets of the colours and contrasts as you'll see below. Thomas is a professional photographer and Stine is a fashion designer so you'd possibly expect something over the top but in fact it's a georgeous, almost minimalist look, with the odd designer piece thrown in.
The apartment is on the first floor which is brilliant after 3 floors up in Berlin (oh our aching legs) and it's right in the heart of the Red Light district which makes for interesting stores and company along the streets. It's been gentrified a lot over the last ten years from what we understand and it's an up and coming trendy area to live and party in (a bit like St Kilda ten years ago).
We've been extremely lucky with the weather as it's been cold but clear most days and temperatures between 15 and 19 degrees, although I think one day was only 13 degrees. Apparently, its normally blowing a gale and raining so hard you cannot use an umbrella at this time of year so we do feel special. Fingers crossed the weather sticks around a bit longer.
After settling in on Tuesday, we walked around the Vesterbro area to orient ourselves and then the following day toured central Copenhagen by foot for nearly 5 hours. On Thursday we took a look at some of the more typical tourist sites including Nyhavn (new harbour) and the Little Mermaid as well as a cruise up the canals to see the Opera House and some beautiful old houses dating back to the early 1700's and the ship building era.
Friday we just had an easy day, relaxing around the apartment and then seeing a movie (The Wedding Crashers - a bit of harmless fun) as we were getting ready for the big Night of Culture. For only 70 krone (20 AUD) we could go to any and all events across 300 venues which were running between 6pm and midnight.
We saw about 8 or 9 events, including a student photographic exhibition, the famous modern tapestries in the Royal Palace presented to Queen Margreth II for her 60th birthday (truly amazing), some choral music in an old church (fantastic sound quality), the carillion song of the church bells, a fashion parade by some up & coming Greenlandic designers (some of which Tam would love to buy) and songs by Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf and Patricia Cass sung in French in the French Literary Cafe amongst others. It was a crazy night, quite cold but clear. There were 60,000 people who attended last year and I think there would have been similar numbers out with us.
After stumbling back home, we got a text the next morning to say that 'Our Mary' had done the country proud and produced the Danish Prince on the morning after Culture Night. My sister in Scotland said I should head for the Rosenborg Palace for some commemorative events at 12noon. We raced down there and with about 3,000 others, stood around for nearly 45 mins to see the Changing of the Guard! It was nice but I thought there'd be something else.
Afterwards we wandered around Kastellet, an old palace which is now an Army barracks and tourist location and saw the amazing Grefion Fountain which took 11 yrs to build. It's quite phenomenal and has a real power of water gushing so it looks like the 4 bulls are ploughoing through the Swedish fields as the legend suggests.
From there we found the best Tapas place Nini's which has only been open 1 yr and had a lovely late lunch which reminded us of Mo Vida in Melbourne (except not as nice). We toddled back home in the late afternoon sun, well satisfied.
We thought for a Saturday night, we'd check out a local bar that we'd seen during the week - Simple TV on our own street. Well, obviously, we're in the know, as the place packed out within 30 mins of us arriving and they had a great DJ mixing old and new records.
Today we caught up with Lars, a friend of our houseswap couple and had a nice discussion over coffee and he suggested a few good ideas for day trips and things to do in both Denmark and Sweden. He also knows a heap about the history and politics of Denmark and Scandanavia generally, which really helped us have a sense of the place.
We were also in town when mary gave birth and went to see the changing of the guards (to celebrate the birth).
Tomorrow we're off on a short road trip north of Denmark, and then later in the week to Sweden. Next entry in a week most likely.
The apartment is on the first floor which is brilliant after 3 floors up in Berlin (oh our aching legs) and it's right in the heart of the Red Light district which makes for interesting stores and company along the streets. It's been gentrified a lot over the last ten years from what we understand and it's an up and coming trendy area to live and party in (a bit like St Kilda ten years ago).
We've been extremely lucky with the weather as it's been cold but clear most days and temperatures between 15 and 19 degrees, although I think one day was only 13 degrees. Apparently, its normally blowing a gale and raining so hard you cannot use an umbrella at this time of year so we do feel special. Fingers crossed the weather sticks around a bit longer.
After settling in on Tuesday, we walked around the Vesterbro area to orient ourselves and then the following day toured central Copenhagen by foot for nearly 5 hours. On Thursday we took a look at some of the more typical tourist sites including Nyhavn (new harbour) and the Little Mermaid as well as a cruise up the canals to see the Opera House and some beautiful old houses dating back to the early 1700's and the ship building era.
Friday we just had an easy day, relaxing around the apartment and then seeing a movie (The Wedding Crashers - a bit of harmless fun) as we were getting ready for the big Night of Culture. For only 70 krone (20 AUD) we could go to any and all events across 300 venues which were running between 6pm and midnight.
We saw about 8 or 9 events, including a student photographic exhibition, the famous modern tapestries in the Royal Palace presented to Queen Margreth II for her 60th birthday (truly amazing), some choral music in an old church (fantastic sound quality), the carillion song of the church bells, a fashion parade by some up & coming Greenlandic designers (some of which Tam would love to buy) and songs by Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf and Patricia Cass sung in French in the French Literary Cafe amongst others. It was a crazy night, quite cold but clear. There were 60,000 people who attended last year and I think there would have been similar numbers out with us.
After stumbling back home, we got a text the next morning to say that 'Our Mary' had done the country proud and produced the Danish Prince on the morning after Culture Night. My sister in Scotland said I should head for the Rosenborg Palace for some commemorative events at 12noon. We raced down there and with about 3,000 others, stood around for nearly 45 mins to see the Changing of the Guard! It was nice but I thought there'd be something else.
Afterwards we wandered around Kastellet, an old palace which is now an Army barracks and tourist location and saw the amazing Grefion Fountain which took 11 yrs to build. It's quite phenomenal and has a real power of water gushing so it looks like the 4 bulls are ploughoing through the Swedish fields as the legend suggests.
From there we found the best Tapas place Nini's which has only been open 1 yr and had a lovely late lunch which reminded us of Mo Vida in Melbourne (except not as nice). We toddled back home in the late afternoon sun, well satisfied.
We thought for a Saturday night, we'd check out a local bar that we'd seen during the week - Simple TV on our own street. Well, obviously, we're in the know, as the place packed out within 30 mins of us arriving and they had a great DJ mixing old and new records.
Today we caught up with Lars, a friend of our houseswap couple and had a nice discussion over coffee and he suggested a few good ideas for day trips and things to do in both Denmark and Sweden. He also knows a heap about the history and politics of Denmark and Scandanavia generally, which really helped us have a sense of the place.
We were also in town when mary gave birth and went to see the changing of the guards (to celebrate the birth).
Tomorrow we're off on a short road trip north of Denmark, and then later in the week to Sweden. Next entry in a week most likely.
posted by Most Liveable at 5:58 PM
3 Comments:
Hi M & T,
Still sounds like you guys are having a great time. Not much to report here... weather getting better, Ethan growing every day!
Cheers...D, K & E
How cool is logoland
What gorgeous weather and therefore photos!! I remember some of the places you went to, and that fountain is something else, eh? (as they say in Dundee!)
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