24.03.2005 - 29.03.2005 
9 °C
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen....so the song goes, and so it is....very lovely indeed.
Having been unable to find cheap flights to celebrate Xmas in Copenhagen last year, I felt rather obliged to make the most of my 5 day Easter break, so jumped on board a flight to Denmark.... with a few minor hiccups along the way: 1) getting stuck in horrendous Dublin traffic (a national disgrace!) and missing my flight! and 2) being put on stand-by for the flight the following morning and after gleefully accepting an upgrade to business class ("Yes I suppose that would be adequate") and boarding my flight, being informed that "Due to an excess of fog across much of Scandinavia, Copenhagen airport is presently closed, so we will have to sit here and wait for advice from air traffic control in Copenhagen before we are able to take off". Thankfully after a couple of hours, it lifted, and I arrived in Denmark.
Copenhagen is home to approximately 1.7 million people, including the Danish Royal Family, and in 2004 was placed at #5 on a list of the world's most livable cities, along with Sydney! Its charming, centuries old palaces and parks are juxtaposed by its stylish, yet ergonomically designed buildings and a space-age driverless metro. It's akin in many ways to Amsterdam with its gable-house lined canals, cycle-obsessed citizens, and scrumptious pastries - thankfully though, not a mob of Pommie stags to be seen (no offence to ye Pommie lads!). On the other hand, it had that Singaporean police-state aspect to it - it did seem a bit naughty to be seen to be jaywalking, and I would absolutely expect to see someone arrested should they dare spit on the pavement (NOT a bad idea!!)
I started my exploration of Copenhagen at the Radhuspladsen, the city square that is home to the monstrous red-brick Radhus (City Hall), flocks of manky pigeons and a proliferation of "polse" (hot-dog) eating people. The Danes seem to be even more obsessed with munching on hot dogs than the Norwegians and have all sorts of variations on the boring old mutilated mixed animal melange on a bun. If you fancy a hot dog with mustard, then so be it, but if you are more adventurous, you can also have a jalapeno pepper, Danish blue cheese and ketchup combo, or a Crown Prince Frederik Polse (don't ask), or even a Crown Princess Mary - complete with Vegemite!
From the Radhuspladsen I said G'day to Hans Christian Andersen, whose statue sits to the side of the square. Some 200 years after his birth, "Ho-See" remains a enormously popular national icon, and the whole city had gone a tad "Ho-See" mad in preparation for his 200th birthday with shops across the city selling out of his books faster than your local Spar (like a 7-11) can sell a batch of Cheese and Onion flavoured Taytos (for the uninitiated, a truly Irish obsession). Bidding Ho-See farewell, I made for the Danish Design Centre where I devoured my first fair dinkum "wienerbrod" before sampling some of the interactive art on show - a room full of funky, yet functionally designed chairs - when I got bored of sitting on the Pastil chair (a body-contoured chair which you can lounge about on in your swimming pool), I sat for a while on a Tipi chair (rather like sitting on an oversized featherless chicken), before moving onto the Tomato chair (a seat wedged between three tomato like spheres, and finally the Bubble chair - a large fibreglass bubble that floats from the ceiling!!
Anyway, back to the Wienerbrod I was munching on....what is so famously known the world over as the delectable Danish (in all its wonderful varieties), is referred to in Denmark as "Wienerbrod" (i.e. Vienna bread). Why? Well apparently, sometime in the 18th Century, a Danish pastry chef upped and moved to Vienna, where, in between copious coffee outings, and hanging with the Seccessionists, had time to perfect the "Danish" recipe. Ever since, the Danes have referred to the pastry as "wienerbrod". Incidentally, the Austrians still refer to them as "Danishes". Either way - very "Miam-my"!
With the afternoon sun finally rearing its puny little head, I skirted the periphery of the Tivoli amusement park (heavily padlocked for the winter), before roaming up to the quaint Nyhavn ("New harbour") canal, the former merchants' quarter of Copenhagen, and finishing the afternoon on a canal boat tour around the rapidly gentrifying dockland areas, where I got my first glimpse of Amalienborg Palace, the brand-spanking new Opera House, and the backside of the tiny "Little Mermaid" statue....
The following day I headed to the NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, a museum housing an interesting collection of Greek, Etruscan and Egyptian art, before heading up the Rundetarn, a 15th Century round tower, ducking my head into Vor Frue Kirke (where Crown Prince Frederik and Mary got hitched) and ambling down Stroget, a kilometre-long pedestrian shopping strip, replete with high-street fashion stores, eateries and souvenir shops selling Amber, trolls and postcards of the Danish Posh and Becks - aka Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary.
So what's the story with the newlyweds then?? Well, apparently the "commoner" Mary Donaldson, a Tasmanian real estate agent, was hanging out in a Sydney bar during the Olympics, and decided she might try her luck with the dashing young man at the bar - this is where dear Frederik comes in. Of course, not really knowing much about Danish Royals, "Our Mary", didn't have a clue that "Our Frederik" was Denmark's most eligible bachelor at the time. Fast-track to 2005, and she's married to the fella and one of Denmark's most talked about women. A quick scan of the magazine racks in Copenhagen's Central station highlighted just how popular this woman has become.....from the headline screaming out the word's "Skandal" and "Schok" in "Mary's familien" to the pictures of her holding a baby (presumable evidence of her desire for motherhood), it is clear she is quite the Danish Superstar - right up there with Hans Christian Anderson and Aqua ("Barbie Girl").
With a few hours left to kill, I decided to pop over to Sweden for the afternoon - as you do 
After a quick ride on the train across the 7.8km Oresund bridge, I arrived in Malmo, where I spent a few hours exploring the Gamla Staden (old town) and the city parks which surround Malmo's little castle.
The next morning I headed to Slotsholmen, the present day site of the Danish government, and site of the former Royal Palace, Christiansborg. Feeling uninspired to pay more money to see another load of overly ostentatious reception chambers, I instead went for a walk through the charming Rosenborg Slot (Palace) gardens, and wound my way down to Amalienborg Palace, for the Changing of the Guards before continuing on to get a close-up look at the extremely poxy Little Mermaid Statue, and the hoardes of people clambering it over for that special Kodak moment.
In the afternoon I wandered across to Christianshavn to visit "The Free State of Christiania". Christiania was set up in the 70s as a "semi-utopian" community, which was self-governing, environmentally friendly, and free of the capitalist constraints of the then government. Even today, it remains tax-free and rent-free for its residents, and is a nice change from the fast pace of the rest of Copenhagen. After passing through the gate to "The Free State", the colour and liveliness of the place became apparent....unfortunately, so did the size of the mangy dogs (the mangiest I've seen since visiting Cambodia!), so I promptly departed through the gate, which warned me that "(I was) now entering the European Union" - truly scary stuff hey?
On my final morning in Copenhagen I visited the National Museum, to brush up on my Danish history (yeah, it's still pretty shoddy), before lunching at a quaint little cafe downtown. "Ida Davidson" is apparently "the best place in the world" to sample smorrebrod, Denmark's gourmet specialty. Smorrebrod is essentially an open-faced rye bread concoction, which can be topped with anything from roast beef to fjord prawns, and garnished with whatever you like! I settle for carpaccio beef, topped with a wonderfully bitey mustard, and some salad....boring?? Hell no....absolutely scrumptious....and yeah, at 12Euro, well you'd be jolly well hoping so!!
So now, back to life in Dublin for another month, then onward to England for a while!
Let me know what ye are all up to!
Adios
Belinda xo
