Copenhagen, Part 3

We had some very different weather extremes each day in Copenhagen. Sun, then snow, and on the third morning there was fog! We headed down to the waterfront to see the Little Mermaid, and also found this pretty Anglican church with a fountain that must be spectacular when the water is running.

Hello Little Mermaid!

Near the waterfront, we found a big travel bug hotel - we finally said goodbye to Earl Numbers (who travelled with us through Barcelona, Athens, England, Scotland, Wales, Copenhagen and Malmo - godspeed, little buddy) and picked up a few new friends, including the Scuba Smurf on the top right! We will take him on some dives with us.

We then visited Rosenborg Castle, yet another castle within the city proper - this one is basically the storage locker of the royal family, as I can't imagine anyone spends any time there - it is stuffed to the rafters with valuables and the treasury. I did like the tidbit that their royal wine (which was started as a white Rhennish wine in the 1590's) has been diluted with other wine through the years, now tastes like dry sherry, and is only served at special occasions.

Entrance, and a hidden surprise (TM)

The walls and ceilings and floors were completely covered with decoration on all surfaces - a little gaudy for my tastes!

I do love the elephants throughout the city (the elephant has been a symbol of Denmark since the 1400's, and the royalty and highest members of society are part of the Order of the Elephant)

The turned ivory pieces were ridiculously intricate!

This ship is made completely of ivory and string - even the sails are thin sheets of ivory!

Crown dating from 1596!

Side view of the castle, and one of the gardens surrounding it. No ceremonial guards standing here - instead there were young men in camouflage with automatic rifles and bayonettes - not kidding around!

We then took a walk through the city centre towards Amalienborg Palace for the Changing of the Guard. Here are some of the sights along the way:

More elephants!

Can't get enough of the different coloured buildings - it makes every street so picturesque!

More cozy patio seats

LOL!!

I really wanted to buy this poster, but the shop was closed every time we came back to it over the weekend!

I.... don't know if that means what you think it means.

Copenhagen LOVES its bikes. Dedicated bike lanes everywhere, with their own traffic signals, and more room for bike parking than car parking in most areas. This parking lot for bikes included five or six of the tent-like structures, to give you an idea of scale!

We stopped in at the Lego store - I didn't know this, but Lego was invented in Denmark (a portmanteau of the Danish words for To Play and Good). There were more adults than kids in the store. Some things were the same as the Lego Store in NYC that I visited a few years ago...

Like this dragon

Others were Copenhagen-specific - here are the ceremonial guards

Typical CPH streetscape

I love the detail of the man taking the woman's picture on the lower left!

There were also some international classics (Tower Bridge!)

And a Make Your Own Lego area - I felt this came together fairly well!

We also stopped by some local grocery stores for inexpensive chocolate souvenirs (and some very affordable truffle oil, which at 100 mL fit into my carryon, yay!) and continued giggling at strange foreign food.

Like 'dayum, that's good' ?

WTF?

We were part of a smallish crowd at Amalienborg for the changing of the guard. This is a square with four identical buildings surrounding it. There is one for the monarch to live in, one for the heir, one for visiting guests, and one for ceremonial purposes.

One of the buildings - no idea which one!

Borrowed from Wikipedia to show the layout. The Copenhagen Opera House (which we visited the night before) is just across the water, and the road exiting at the bottom of the picture runs straight to the Marble Church, which we visited next.

The guards serve for 24 hours (rotating inside and outside), and every day at noon there is a changing of the guards ceremony. The size of the guard and their outfits change depending on who is currently staying at the palace - I believe we had the smallest ceremony. If the Queen is in residence, they wear red tunics and look very similar to the Buckingham Palace guards.

Because of the weather, there weren't many people around, and we got a great spot for the ceremony. It was eerie hearing the guards marching before you could see them through the fog!

Unlike some ceremonies we've seen (*Athens*), the police were polite and helpful, and even courteous - making sure they kept moving so as not to block everyone's view. This gentleman kept us entertained with jokes while we were waiting for the guards, then explained every step and where he would like us to move and why. Great job, sir!

The guards marched to each station at each palace - after two we went into one of the palaces to see the exhibits. I guess we may have missed something wild and crazy, but I suspect not.

Here's another layout of the palace complex

One of the things I like about the Danes is that they aren't precious about their past monarchs. The museum was full of great tidbits like this! One of the kings was too mentally insane to rule, so his physician made all of the decisions in ruling the country, slept with his wife the queen and even produced the heir! (what a helpful guy!)

Here's a panorama in the middle of the square - looks kind of funny because the buildings are all identical on the outside!

Our last stop in Copenhagen before we had to return to the airport was the Marble Church (Frederick's Church). This is just outside the Amalienborg complex and was built from 1749 to 1894. It was very pretty!

It's neat how we see echoes of previous trips everywhere - here's Saint Mark, whose winged lion is all over Venice

I thought this one was a good place to leave it for now. We had a wonderful time in Copenhagen (and in Malmo) and met some nice people. Can't wait for our next trip, to Oslo, Norway!

Copenhagen Part 2 (with bonus Malmo!)

When we woke up in CPH on day 2, it had snowed - very exciting! This is only the 3rd snowfall we've seen since leaving Canada in September. We headed out towards the airport, as we had plans to catch the train across the bridge to Malmo, Sweden. The ride takes about 25 minutes and goes across this huge bridge. Øresund Bridge was built in the late 90's to connect the two cities - in addition to being the longest bridge/tunnel in Europe (at 7 km), it also carries the data cables linking mainland Europe to the Scandanavian countries (similar to deep sea cables in the Atlantic).  After a quick passport check on the way (with a distinct lack of stamps) we disembarked at Central Station in Malmo and headed back west towards the sea.

Canal next to Central Station in Malmo

We  passed two neat things on our way to the waterfront. The first was an enormous dog park, with ample paved parking, a built-in agility course, and an easy beach for swimming. It must be awesome to be a dog owner (or a dog) in Malmo! The second was the Turning Torso building - it's the tallest building in Sweden and even Scandanavia, and built to twist around its axis. It was built to give the city a distinctive skyline, after they disassembled their enormous shipbuilding crane. It also looks better against a blue sky than against snow and fog, but what can you do?
We're collecting a Christmas ornament from each country that we visit (often they aren't real ornaments, but they will be on our tree nontheless), and the Turning Torso is ours for Sweden.

The reason we were heading towards the beach/Baltic Sea was to visit the Ribersborgs Kallbadhus, a bathhouse on a pier that dates back to 1898 (rebuilt over the years, of course). It's a Scandanavian spa, which means alternating hot and cold. Unlike others we've tried in the past, like Le Nordik in Gatineau, others in Canada, and those in Iceland and Spain that we've visited in our travels, that had hot tubs, tepid pools, and a variety of hot and cold options, this one relies just on hot saunas and cold dips in the Baltic sea! It is open year-round and took the place this year of our polar dip.

Beautiful old building, pretty stunning location....

..... kinda cold!

Heading in

For obvious reasons, we didn't have a camera inside the spa, but here are some pictures from the spa's website, local newspapers, etc.

In warmer days. Enter the spa from the pier, head to the saunas in the house at the 7 o'clock position, go to the Baltic on the walkways at the bottom of the picture

Turning Torso, and a sunnier day

Our view wasn't quite this bad, but the ice on the railing was pretty built up

Wait, what?

So yes, Ribersborgs is a nude spa - not just recommended, swimsuits are actually not allowed. They have separate change rooms for men and women, and each side of the facility (with entrances to the open water, sunbathing areas etc) is single sex. That being said, the staff are both, and take care of both sides of the facility. So even though we were in the women-only sauna, a man came in (not just fully clothed, but in winter gear) to bring out wood for the fire for the sauna.

And the great thing was, he was the 'weird' one who was wearing clothes.

We were both pretty nervous about this - how uncomfortable would it be? - but it was too great an opportunity to pass up. And I'm so glad we did - it was honestly my favourite thing all weekend, and one of my favourite experiences of the trip so far.

Because it didn't matter at all that anyone was naked. After about 2 minutes, it completely ceased to be a novelty. I couldn't tell you much at all about the sizes and shapes and stretch marks we saw. I do remember admiring the tough and beautiful women in their seventies and eighties plunging into the ice water, and the men who told jokes back and forth while sitting together shoulder to shoulder. I wonder if people in North America would be less ashamed of their bodies and nakedness if they saw other people and realized that no one else's form is 'perfect', either. One person who asked online if she could wear a swimsuit because she didn't want to 'inflict her lumpy body on everyone' was told "we're all saggy and lumpy in our own ways, come on in!" What a wonderful message!
I can tell you is that, when Justin and I were sitting in the one co-ed sauna and talking and everyone heard our accents, everyone was eager to speak with the foreigners, hear our stories and tell their own, give advice, and generally be warm and wonderful. We spent a lot of time speaking with one man, Jens, who not only helped us to time it right to have seats for the very crowded Aufguss ritual (extra steam and aromatic oils fanned on everyone), but drove us back to the train station and then got out of his car to show us the best place to eat.
What a great few hours!

After the spa, we had some delicious Smørrebrød (open faced sandwiches) at Jens'  recommendation, then walked around Malmo for half an hour and did some geocaching. Then it was time to head back to Copenhagen.

Nyvahn, one of the most picturesque areas of the city

Church of Our Saviour - you can walk up the wooden steps to touch the golden globe, but not in the winter - darn!

Chistiana Freetown was a weird experience. It was set up as a autonomous neighbourhood/city/country with their own flag, own rules, and a barter system. Perhaps it was better in the 70's - but when we were there all we saw was some admittedly great street art, run-down houses, and hundreds of people lined up to buy drugs from stalls of people with their faces hidden. We didn't feel unsafe, but it wasn't somewhere we wanted to loiter either. They don't want photos inside as buying drugs are still illegal (not sure how, as there was no way that was being enforced on this particular Saturday evening) but did get some of these shots from the entrance and abandoned areas.

After we left the smelly hippies behind, we wandered around sightseeing. One major downside of Copenhagen was how early everything closed on weekends - great if you live there, not so great for tourism!

Now THAT is a houseboat! Eat your heart out Marty.

The Marble Church and Amalienborg Palace.  More on that in Day 3.

Waterbus stop! What is this, Venice?

We took the waterbus from the opera house down the canal and did some more walking and geocaching as the light disappeared.

The other end of Christianborg Slot (Palace) from yesterday. Multiple crowns, remember?

Closed amusement parks seem extra creepy at night and in the fog, don't you agree?

Hans Christian Andersen statue seems to agree - check out that side-eye

We finished off the night with a really excellent tasting menu at a Nordic restaurant.

Dessert, yum

 Happy and stuffed, we headed back to our AirBNB to rest up for our final day in Denmark!

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