Copenhagen

Nyhavn

Today was Copenhagen. This may sound silly, but I had a total of 2 goals for today: Nyhavn and a specific yarn store. We hit both.

We used the local Hop-on-Hop-off bus to get around and sight see in general and then had lunch at the Nyhavn waterfront. This is a canal waterfront that is lined with colorfully painted buildings from the 17th and early 18th centuries. The canal was dug by Swedish prisoners of war from 1670 to 1673 under the instruction of King Christian V. The area was frequented by sailors and was, understandably, a rough area, but it was not red light district. Hans Christian Andersen lived here for nearly 2 decades.

Nyhavyn

Hans Christian Andersen’s House

The oldest house in Nyhavyn: from 1681

Nyhavyn

Nyhavyn from the water

We spent time walking along the canal and ate lunch in one of the restaurants. I had a sampling of local open faced sandwiches called smorredbrod. These have rye bread on the bottom (a really coarse rye bread that is quite different from ours at home) topped with meat or fish and condiments. Really good!

We saw the Little Mermaid statue. It was commissioned in 1909 and is, naturally, based on the Hans Christian Andersen character. It was unveiled in 1913. The artist wanted to use a ballerina as a model but she did not want to pose nude so he used his wife as the nude model for the body and the ballerina as the model for the head. The statue is along the shore, just in the water. Unfortunately, it has been vandalized multiple times over the years, having been painted, lots limbs, been blasted off its base, and been decapitated twice. Obviously it has been repaired each time.

The Little Mermaid

We went on 2 canal cruises, one daytime, one evening. They did overlap some, but it was still nice to do both. We saw a variety of things around the city. There’s the Church of Our Savior which has a spiral staircase on the outside of its steeple. It’s supposed to have a great view. The Christiansborg Palace is where the Danish Parliament meets. Next door is the stock exchange which has a spire that has 4 “dragons” with their tails intertwined. I have dragons in quotes because whoever designed them made them look more like dog-gator hybrids. Really. We went by areas of very expensive apartments, of houseboats, and an area that basically is hippies that are left un-policed. Altogether, a very interesting city.

The Church of Our Savior