Wednesday 19 July 2017

Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen







James and Amber had told us wonderful things about Copenhagen, so we decided to take a look for ourselves.  A brief, comfortable Ryan Air flight followed by a short train journey took us to the Grand Hotel in the heart of Copenhagen.  The hotel must have once been grand however the grandeur has somewhat faded now.  Nevertheless, our room was comfortable and we were situated right next to the Tivoli Gardens.
Lunch was the first thing on our agenda so we headed straight to the Tivoli Gardens for a Danish hotdog.  The Tivoli is the second oldest amusement park in the world, operating since 1843 (the oldest, amusement park is located in Klampenborg, Denmark which opened in 1583) and is a fun place to visit for both adults and children.  There are amusement rides set amongst beautiful gardens with lakes and fountains and peacocks strolling amid the crowds.  There are also shops and restaurants and we had a lovely time wandering the area.  In fact, we loved it so much that we visited the gardens 3 times over the course of our stay.  In the summer time, a huge fireworks display is held every Saturday night and we had put it on our list of things to do, until we found out that the display didn’t start until 11.45pm due to the fact that it doesn’t get dark until then.  Michael and I are well and truly in bed by that time so we reluctantly gave that a miss!
We took a canal tour, which was a relaxing way to experience the harbour and canals and it was interesting to see the mixture of old and new architecture along the way.  We saw the famous statue of the Little Mermaid, which only days before our arrival had been drenched in red paint in protest of the hunting of pilot whales around the North Atlantic islands that are under Danish control.  Luckily for us, the statue had been cleaned by the time we saw her.  It wasn’t the first time that the statue has been vandalised and I don’t suppose that it will be the last.  We also saw the Danish frigate HDMS Peder Skram, which is famous for accidentally firing a Harpoon missile in 1982, severing power lines and destroying four unoccupied summer cottages and damaging a further 130 buildings.  Luckily no one was injured and the incident has become known as the “whoopsie missile”.
The next day was a bit drizzly but not enough to discourage us from walking around the city.  We had a look at the Design Museum, which was interesting before heading to the Glyptoteket.  This museum houses an impressive collection of ancient art including Greek and Roman statues and Egyptian mummies.  There is also a large collection of French artworks by artists such as Manet, Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Cezanne and Rodin.  We spent a lovely couple of hours admiring the different works. 
In the afternoon, we visited the Carlsberg Brewery.  The tour was self guided, which I enjoyed, as I really didn’t want to attend another guided tour of a brewery (there are only so many times one can listen to the story of how beer is made).  Once again, the stables were a highlight, as were able to get up close to the draught horses and were able to see one of the horses being washed down.  The tour ended with the obligatory tasting, which Michael enjoyed immensely.  We then took a walk around the outside of the brewery to see the original gates with the immense statues of the elephants. 
The next day was filled with glorious sunshine and we set out to explore more of the city (after our breakfast of Danish pastries).  We strolled though the beautiful gardens of Frederiksberg until we came to the Copenhagen Zoo.  We hadn’t intended to visit the zoo, however it was such a lovely day we decided to have a look.  It was a good size zoo, well laid out and with a large variety of animals.  My favourite part of the day was watching the polar bear swimming.  There was a large Tasmanian exhibit, which housed kangaroos, wombats and Tasmanian devils.  We couldn’t help noticing the severed horse’s head lying in the middle of the devil enclosure.  It was especially disconcerting as the very next exhibit contained the horses.  The sight of the severed head called up a distant memory of a dismembered giraffe, which I later checked on the Internet.  It was Copenhagen Zoo that caused a controversy in 2014 when it killed Marius, a healthy, young giraffe, publicly dissected him and fed his parts to the zoo lions.  The following year the zoo killed a young lion before once again publicly dissecting it.  I guess the Danes are not squeamish about such things.
We were enjoying the sunshine so much that we took another canal cruise to see a little more of the city.  Copenhagen really is an attractive, well-planned city and it was interesting listening to the guide’s commentary.
Later that afternoon we visited the Christiansborg Palace, which is still used by the Royal Family for various functions and events as well as being the seat of the Danish Parliament, the Prime Minister’s Office and the Supreme Court.  The Royal Receptions Rooms are richly adorned with furniture and works of art.  The Great Hall contains 17 tapestries recounting the history of Denmark and presented to Queen Margrethe on her 50th birthday by the Danish business community.  It was all very interesting and we were also able to view the ruins of the previous palaces underneath the existing palace.  Naturally, we exited through the gift shop and it was fascinating to see the amount of souvenirs with Princess Mary’s face on them.  Princess Mary is a bit of a cult figure in Denmark not unlike the Princess of Wales was in her time.  It is interesting to note that the Danes do not refer to her as being Australian but rather as being Tasmanian. 
Dinner that night was a real treat as James had recommended a wonderful restaurant for us to try.  It was called Vakst and the heart of the restaurant was a large greenhouse, which was built up between two floors.  The food was Nordic and unbelievably good and was presented beautifully.  My dessert was green strawberries – divine!
We absolutely loved our time in Copenhagen and would definitely like to return again, perhaps in the wintertime to see how different the city would look.  






From Clare to Here







James, Amber and Amber’s mum, Clare, came to visit us for the weekend.  We had not met Clare before, so wanting to make a good impression I had my hair done in the morning.  Unfortunately for me, the winds were up and I met them at the bus stop looking like Phyllis Diller on a bad hair day (not quite as bad as the first Skype session we had with Amber, but that is another story).  We dropped their suitcases off at our apartment and then headed out to have some lunch.

Everyone assured us that it wasn’t too windy to sit outside and enjoy the view of Grand Canal, so we took our seats at a lovely café and ordered our lunch.  First we watched our table napkins blow away, closely followed by our menus.  Our meals arrived and my salad took flight.  It wasn’t until the vacant chairs from the nearby tables sailed by that we admitted that perhaps we should have sat inside.  We persevered until our meal was finished and decided that we would have our coffee indoors at a different café.  It is a downside of living on a small island that when the winds are up, there is no escape.

We had a bit of a walk around Dublin, showing the sights to Clare.  Once we were away from the water, the winds dropped and walking was much more pleasant. The Irish Whiskey Museum was next on our agenda.  We joined the long queue waiting our turn to purchase our tickets.  We couldn’t believe how busy the museum was and how slowly the queue was moving, until we saw the gentleman manning the counter.  He was a very friendly fellow and had a grand old chat to every single person at the counter.  When it came to our turn, he heard our accents and asked which part of Australia we were from.  When he discovered we were from Melbourne, he told us that he spent some time there and asked which AFL teams we followed.  He was tickled pink to discover that Michael was a fellow Sydney Swans supporter and he and Michael waxed lyrical about the team and reminisced together about Barry Hall famously punching Brent Staker.  Amber, James and Clare couldn’t believe it!  The queue behind us was getting longer and I explained that this is just how the Irish are.   The tour itself was very interesting as we were not only given information on the history of whiskey but also a little on the history of Ireland.  There were interactive exhibits and we finished with a tasting at the end of the tour. 
 
We did a little more walking around before stopping for a drink at the Palace Bar.  This is an original Victorian pub, built in 1823 with lovely stained glass windows, high vaulted ceilings and a beautiful mahogany bar with mirrors.  Suitably refreshed it was soon time for dinner.  We had chosen an Irish restaurant, Gallagher’s Boxty House, which was a bit of a gamble as we hadn’t been there before.   A Boxty is a type of potato pancake from the counties of Leitrim, Cavan and Fermanagh.  Luckily the restaurant proved to be a hit with each of us enjoying our meals.  A brief walk around Temple Bar followed our meal and then it was time to head for home.
 
It was a late start on Sunday morning for us, as the shops in Dublin do not generally open until 11.00am.  Clare wanted to do a little souvenir shopping so we took her to some of the better Irish shops known for their quality Irish goods.  I never tire of looking at the beautiful woollen items for sale however, I just know that there is absolutely nowhere to wear them in Australia (unless I was to suddenly take up skiing).  James had hinted that he would like a roast for his Sunday lunch, so we headed over to FX Buckley for their signature roast beef.  It was a nice way to finish our time together before walking them to the bus stop for their journey back to the airport.

It was only a quick visit but it was lovely to see James and Amber and to finally meet Clare.