Waiting for the sun (Copenhagen, Denmark part 2)

Hello again dear reader, today's title might be somewhat of a give away. After yesterday's beautiful sunny afternoon we returned to more familiar patterns of grey cloud and drizzle. Well, following a brief burst of morning sunshine. Once again we were left waiting for the sun, a classic from one of the best bands to come out of America, The Doors.

Our discovery of Copenhagen continues. There is so much to do here, museums, galleries, historic buildings and statues, of course. Being here over Easter has limited our options due to public holidays so we have decided we will definitely return in their summer next year. Although our accommodation is spacious and very central, we hope to stay in the same building but on the ground floor.

Our second full day was also affected by the weather. The cold has really not been an issue for us. Thermals, a warm coat and gloves and a beanie work wonders. Even the rain hasn't been such a problem. Drizzle is never far away and mostly is just an inconvenience since it is so light. Not today. Rain is predicted.

Our place through the Rosenborg gate.

At breakfast we returned to Buka to sample different pastries but still with a double espresso. It was reasonably cool, but not cold. We returned home to rescue the washing and place it in the drier.

Reffen

Initially our intention was to go to Reffen in the morning before the rain set in. Despite Easter, Reffen was open and had a number of events happening to attract the holiday crowd. There's food, alcohol, music and dancing. Some Christian religions would be appalled.

Reffen is a street food market where you can buy street food, obvious, but also fresh food to take home and cook. It was a 30 minute bus ride and given the weather and the need to check out the station for our impending departure, Reffen got the flick. Until next time.

Central Station

The bag-drag to our accommodation was defined by crowds, cobblestones and misdirection. Walking 2 km with a wheelie bag is OK if the conditions are kind. I was determined to arrive at the station on Saturday, not stressed or tired or sweating profusely. Searching for the route that would deliver this was problematic because a lot of it was similar to the reason why the LNP elected Dutton as leader, a mystery.

The back of the Church of the Trinity.

We set the GPS which immediately redirected us to the path we had trodden a couple of days before. Useless. With a rough map in my head, we continued on regardless until Google caught up with us. I ditched Declan for this excursion. It proved to be an interesting morning. We finally found the Roundtower which is part of the Church of the Trinity. There was quite a queue to walk up the spiral ramp. The line moved slowly and we had other plans.

The Roundtower.

A little further along our chosen path, we came across two armed soldiers patrolling a section of road that had been closed to cars by the installation of metal swing gates at either end. Interesting. On the fence protecting the building from the street and passing traffic were laminated photographs each captioned "bring them home". It was outside the Great Synagogue. No photos.

The spire of St Peter's.

The rest of the walk was unremarkable. Cafés, restaurants, shops of various descriptions, the usual medley of buildings and businesses. The cobblestones still made their presence felt but not to the extent of our previous trek.

We arrived at the station in 35 minutes, including time for me stop and take photographs, found the required platform and returned home before the drizzle turned to rain. And to see if the washing was dry. Navigating washing machines and dryers is a little challenging when all the controls are marked in Danish or German.

Part of the bike storage at Copenhagen Central Station.

The rain increased in intensity and kept us indoors for the afternoon. Once it cleared, we ventured out in search of dinner.

Bistro 23

The rain had gone but the wind had picked up and it was certainly like a slap in the face if you turned into it. Jayne's coat has a hood and I wore a beanie as we set out to find a restaurant that served steak. That was the easy part. The French influence ensured there were many offerings of steak et frites. The problem was in the size of the offering.

Bistro 23 from across the water.

The first restaurant had the steak but not anything for Jayne. The next offered a 300g steak, way too much for me. And so we kept wandering and reading menus, passing many, many pizza places until we were back at Kongens Nytorv, a stone's throw from Nyhavn.

As I said in the last post, Nyhavn is lined with restaurants but we were uncertain whether they offered seating inside. All the action on a sunny day was outside. As we walked alongside the King's New Square where yesterday we sat in the sun and sipped beer, Jayne quipped, "I'll bet there is no problem getting a seat over there now." A particularly icy blast send my hands deeper into my pockets. She was right, there were plenty of seats available, but amazingly there were also some hardy souls sitting at tables drinking cocktails. And smoking of course.

Flowering bulbs hanging outside a florist.

We soldiered on until we stumbled across Bistro 23 in Nyhavn. A French Bistro with the right dishes, a waiter with a good sense of humour and most importantly, tables inside out of the wind. We may have left the Arctic circle but tonight it hadn't left us.

We had a delightful meal accompanied by a silky, smooth French red. My steak was perfectly cooked and Jayne's lamb chops turned out to be a rack of lamb. No complaints here. We were warm and comfortable and outside the smokers, rugged up like Kenny from Southpark, we're enduring freezing winds so they could feed their habit. Brave? Determined? Stupid? Addicted? I'm not judging, just smirking with a kind of Scott Morrison smugness.

Caspar, our waiter, gave us his card. We told him we'd see him in the summer next year. He thought national service might intervene on our rendezvous. He had not been required this year because there were too many candidates. I guess we'll see. I've written his name on the card so we won't forget.

It was a 10 minute stroll home. We really are in a central location.

Until next time.

Good Day Sunshine (Copenhagen, Denmark, part 1)

During our exploration of our local area yesterday, dear reader, we came across Taste, a French patisserie not far from home. The wheelie bag drag from the station took us through the Latin Quarter and it appears we live near the French Quarter. Why is there never an Australian Quarter? Good taste perhaps?

I digress. Taste was the destination for breakfast not just because of the mouth watering pecan pie Jayne saw in the window. It was also next door to Marmorkirken, our first tourist stop for the day. Alas and alack, Taste had done the French thing with a random bridge day closure. The public holidays actually commence tomorrow (Thursday). Taste has gone next level though and is closed for 7 days.

An act of defiance.

Fortunately there was another bakery about 100 metres back down the road, Baku. A quick about face had us seated and enjoying good coffee and excellent Danish pastries. Who needs the French? We also purchased a baguette because they looked so good. As we were leaving, we enquired about their holiday hours. "No change," was the reply. "We have usual hours of operation." Breakfast over the Easter period is solved.

Marmorkirken

Rather than turn our dinner baguette into a tourist, we returned home, left it in the kitchen and traced our steps back to Marmorkirken. The French influence is obvious throughout Scandinavia in many ways. Take the best view of a significant landmark or other tourist attraction and destroy it by parking trucks in front, or turning the plaza into a Metro station. The Danes did both with Marmorkirken.

Marmorkirken.

It has an absolutely magnificent, sky dominating dome that can be seen from many different points around the city. When there are not major refurbishment programs occuring, like now, the view from the Opera House back through the square that houses the four palaces to the church is simply awe inspiring.

The size of the dome and the church underneath made it difficult to take a photograph that captured it all. Especially one that didn't include a parking area or passing traffic. But I tried.

One of the identical palaces.

Amalienborg Slot

This is an area just beyond Marmorkirken. It is a huge cobblestoned square (not really) that contains four identical palaces that face the equestrian statue in the centre. In one of these places reside the Danish royals and our Mary of course. It is here that the changing of the guard occurs everyday at noon. And do the people turn out to watch? Oh, yes, in big numbers.

A guard that required changing.

Prior to the changing of the guard, we visited the one palace open to tourists. There were two floors open to the public. On one floor there was a look back at recent Danish kings including a timeline that traced the current royals. The rooms were filled with memorabilia from earlier reigns. There were photos, books, swords, riding paraphernalia and pipes. Lots of pipes. The Danes love a smoke. Quite a curiosity for us as smoking is not such a thing in Australia.

A champagne cooler, not a baby bath. They must drink more than us.

The other floor was pretty much devoted to the new king, Frederik X with lots of photos and video presentations of the royal wedding, his pre-nuptial life and the coronation.

Our Mary and some guy she meet in a bar.

Tour complete, we joined the ever growing crowd for the changing of the guard. Suddenly at 11:45am people began running to get into position. No ropes and barriers like we experienced in Sweden. Hence we found ourselves at the rear of the crowd, no matter where we tried to position ourselves. I gave up and moved away from the throng and left Jayne to try to spectate. From what we could see, not much was going on, so we departed the square, somewhat disappointed.

The crowd watching the changing of the guard.

Nyhavn

We discovered we weren't far from Nyhavn (new port) and wanted to have a look at this part of town because our canal cruise leaves from there on Friday. The walk would also take us along the waterfront and hopefully to an area where I could get a clear shot of the Opera House without the fencing and construction works in the way.

It did. There is a vast wharf area called Ofelia Plads near the Skuespilhuset which appears to be an entertainment centre of sorts; currently featuring Madame Butterfly. Not sure why this wasn't at the Opera House. From there, we could see a bridge crossing the canal to what looked like markets. So over we went.

The Opera House across the water.

There appeared to be an inordinate number of couples kissing on the bridge (bikes and pedestrian traffic only). Ever the romantic, I asked Jayne if she wanted me to kiss her. You know what the reply was, dear reader. Later I discovered this is the 'kissing bridge'. And the markets on the other side turned out to be a street food area.

No hot dogs.

Excellent we thought, we can get a Danish hot dog. It's a thing one must do, apparently. We circled the area checking out each food stall. No deal. You can get pasta, Mexican, Vietnamese, fish and chips, and more, but no Danish hot dog. Back across the bridge (still no kiss) to Nyhavn.

Nyhavn.

This is an area similar to Bryggen in Bergen but with life and lots of people. The sun was out and people were enjoying it. One side of the canal is lined with bars and restaurants. Hopefully the forecast rain will clear quickly and we will get to eat here later in the week. 

We found where our cruise will commence on Friday and turned towards home. We wandered looking for a restaurant last night and one turn in a different direction would have led us down here where the options were too numerous to count.

Kongens Nytorv

It was less than 10 minutes walk home and just out of Nyhavn, we stumbled on Kongens Nytorv, a huge cobblestoned square constructed in 1907. Translated it is the king's new square. Near one side of it was a small pavillion surrounded by deck chairs and small tables. We had walked a long way and had been on our feet for a while so it was time for a Carlsberg, the local beer, and to enjoy the first extended sunshine we'd seen since home. And today's title, Good Day Sunshine by the best ever band The Beatles from their 1966 Revolver album.

It was a great place to people watch and 'enjoy' the second hand cigarette and cigar smoke of the locals who haven't heard that smoking is not good for your health. It would appear that the Danes have yet to decide that vaping is a preferable alternative - we haven't seen one vaper since we arrived here. We did, however, see some other interesting sights. People certainly get dressed up to go on a tour of the city. A very sparkly skirt and matching sneakers. Her friend was wearing full length fur. Not quite appropriate unless you're wanting to demonstrate how much money you have.

Overdressed yes?

After the beer, it was time to wander home or rather, to another tourist destination.

Rosenborg Slot

The Rosenborg castle is in Kongens Have (the king's haven), the park directly across the street from our accommodation  and we visited it in the afternoon, post grocery shopping. We're not really sure what will be open tomorrow given the holiday period is commencing.

Rosenborg Slot.

The park itself, the oldest in Copenhagen, is well utilised by people walking dogs and tourists checking out the sights. The flowers are beginning to bloom and the trees are coming back into leaf. The sun was still shining so there were a lot of people out and about, including bus trips visiting the castle.

There were soldiers everywhere around the castle. Jayne was singularly unimpressed by their marching. I was equally amazed at how they held their rifles. We watched some of them practising, badly, before we turned for home.

What a rabble.

Dinner tonight was the delightful baguette purchased from Buka earlier in the day with ham, cheese and tomato accompanied by a French Sauvignon.

The dome is visible everywhere.

Sadly the sun has gone down and rain is predicted.

Until next time.