Copenhagen Trip
Day 2: Monday 23rd June
Our first full day, and our first glitch. Off we went to the Danish National Museum, only to discover that it's closed on Mondays. Right on cue, it also started to rain on us. Downer.
We paused to gawp at the Christiansborg Palace, seat of the Danish Parliament, while we figured out what to do next. A quick skim of the guidebooks revealed that Monday closing is a common feature amongst Danish Museums/Palaces/etc.
So we wander off on a not-entirely-drunkards-walk tour, heading around Slotsholmen, then up Nyhavn to pause at the corner of Kongens Nytorv before heading on to the Amalienborg Palace, the official residence of the Danish royal family. Having explored a small public garden between the palace and the modern port, we did the whole tourist thing and returned to watch the Changing of the Guard.
Next, we wandered back to Strøget and picked a restaurant for lunch. For me, this was the low-point of the whole week - the food was okay, but the service wasn't, and while it had stopped raining, it was rather too cold for eating al fresco.
After that little episode, we went back to Kongens Nytorv and the Amber Museum, which was interesting, if rather small. Then we wandered back to our hotel again. With hindsight, I'm wondering where the afternoon went - we weren't long in the Amber Museum. Maybe the service at lunch was even slower than I remember.
After a brief pause in the hotel, we started a trend that we continued for the rest of the week, and went to Tivoli Gardens for dinner. This went much better than lunch, despite the rather dramatic thunderstorm which had restaurant staff evacuating tables around us (their roof, while sufficient for light showers, wasn't up to that kind of torrential downpour). We'd been lucky, and ended up sat a table in good (i.e. dry) spot. We entertained ourselves wandering around Tivoli for another hour, dodging between spots sheltered from the rain, then retired to the hotel.
The old Stock Exchange (left) and the Christiansborg Palace (right).
We spotted this magnificent beastie above a doorway on Bredgade,
near Kongens Nytorv.
The Marble Church, near the Amalienborg palace. Though construction
was started in 1749, it was abandoned half-finished in 1770 (roughly level with the top of
the classical entrance). The dome was added to the design when construction resumed the late
19th century.
On the way back to the hotel, I was slightly distracted by what I had initially taken
to be just another random sculpture (Copenhagen has lots). Closer inspection revealed
that these two-metre high bronze amphora were labelled "Mercur",
"Venus", "Gaia" and "Mars".
Being a sad astronomy geek, something about their uneven spacing went "click" in my head. Indeed, when I turned to look along the square, there were five more, at appropriate distances, making a scale model of the Solar System. Cool.