Again here is another delayed update, this time being typed on Charles' laptop in the hotel in Copenhagen. There was meant to be wireless Internet at this hotel, however our room's location at the end of the building has meant that the signal is too weak. As such, we are again relying on the next hotel, this time in Oslo, to have acceptable wireless for us to upload this entry, and catch up and upload the next entry before we depart also.
We ended up visiting a net café in the center of town to upload the Hamburg entry, which was full of smoke and broken chairs: not a very enjoyable place to be.
The weather here in Copenhagen has been cold, with most days reaching a maximum of only 1°C, however the skies have been clear, allowing the sun to shine down on us.
The hotel is okay, if a little on the tired side of things, but the breakfast is good with the German-style cheese and meats, cereals, yoghurt, local pastries and most of all, cut oranges. We are just a few steps from the south exit of the main station (København H), which itself is on the southern side of the center of town, making our hotel well located, but as usual in the dodgier part of town.
The trip up from Hamburg started with the DSB (Royal Danish Railways) 3-car DMU railcar departing on time, heading towards Lübeck, where we had just been the day before. Before the train had arrived for loading at Hamburg, we took some time to purchase drinks and baguettes from the shops of the Hbf for lunch during the journey. The DMU was interesting as it featured shared bogies between the middle and end cars (like TGV carriages) and there were only 2 carriage numbers for the 3 cars. Each number corresponded to seats in one of the end cars and half of the middle car, which was certainly an interesting way to divide the train. Unfortunately our seat reservations were for seats that were part of a set of 4 across a table, with 1 seat on each side of the table facing each other, for the aisle seats instead of the preferred window seats.
After our first stop at Lübeck, the train continued north until we hit the North Sea, which we continued along until Puttgarten. Here the train made a brief stop before continuing forward onto a boat for the crossing to Denmark. Once the bottom deck had been filled with trucks and our train, and the next 2 decks above with cars, we were let out to walk up to the top decks for the voyage. Here there were lots of duty free shops offering the usual fare of beauty products, as well as a few cafés for people to fill up with food during the 45-minute crossing. This was a good opportunity, which we took advantage of, to have a warm sit down proper meal, considering that the train only had a hot drinks vending machine onboard. As such, we decided to postpone our baguette eating until dinnertime in Copenhagen later that evening. It had been snowing on and off throughout our trip through northern Germany, and this trend continued on the ferry crossing.
Once over in Denmark we were back in our seats on the train, as it slowly rolled onto solid ground once more. Although there is an overland rail link between Germany and Denmark, it is further to the west and is a less direct route for trains from Hamburg to Copenhagen, hence this service including the ferry crossing. The journey through Denmark was mostly on un-wired single track, as was the case in Germany after Lübeck, with no really high speeds. There were several other Danish trains being crossed in towns along the way, all either other DMU's or old single or newer double deck carriages push/pulled by diesel locomotives. Even when we reached the overhead electrified tracks closer to Copenhagen, many trains were still diesel-hauled or run by DMU's, indicating how many regional services traverse un-electrified tracks in Denmark. At this point we also passed a freight train consisting of wagons not only from Germany, but also from France, showing how far some wagons must travel throughout the greater European system. Once under the wires our journey sped up a little, for the home stretch to Copenhagen, slowed by a few stops at the larger regional centres. In Denmark it was not snowing as it had earlier in the day in Germany, but there was a lot of snow and ice lying around the countryside, indicating the colder conditions and probably more recent heavier snowfall.
Arriving at København H we noted that either than the few loco-hauled trains about, almost all Danish trains were variations on the theme of our railcar. There were a few different EMU versions, and our DMU version, but they all looked the same and all featured the rubber ends for easy multi-train connections, just like the Belgian EMU's. It is certainly weird to stand on a platform and see a station filled with trains that look almost the same as each other! It was 2:15pm by the time we had disembarked and made it to the hotel, where they informed us that check-in was not until 3pm, and we would have to come back then. To fill in the time, after putting our bags into the storeroom at the hotel, we headed to the city side of the station to check out Tivoli. Of course, being winter in Europe, the famous gardens were closed, so we were only able to circumnavigate them and imagine how much fun it would be to ride the coasters we could see inside... and they say the Danes are nice people! During our walk we also passed the Rathus (same as the "Radhaus" in German) and pedestrian shopping areas in the heart of the city.
Back at the hotel at 3pm, they informed us that our room was still not ready and to check back in 10 minutes. We killed the time reading tourist promotional material in the lobby until, when we checked again at 3:15pm, they told us that the room was still not ready! Charles came up with the idea of taking advantage of our Eurail passes by catching the DBS train to Copenhagen airport to check it out. On the trip we passed under the modern computer controlled 3rd rail Copenhagen Metro, only opened in 2001.
The airport itself was disappointing, with bad passenger flow and no view of the runway or tarmac for non-travelling visitors. Charles vowed never to fly there, and is glad that we visited so that he is able to avoid "a disaster" by being there as a travelling passenger with bags. The station itself is nice, although the hordes of baggage trolleys all over the platform looked disorganised and could have been a safety issue, with a few over the white line at the platform's edge!
Back at the hotel once more, the room was finally ready, and after a bit of searching we discovered it was right down the end of the building. Eating our nice baguettes we planned the following day's activities in our room before bed.
After breakfast we finalised the order of events and headed out to the centre of town once more. On the way we made a detour to the Tycho Brae Planetarium, an OMNI (IMAX Dome) and planetarium theatre, to check out what was showing and the session times. The shows we had either seen before or did not interest us, especially with the prices at 95 Danish Kroners, roughly $20AUD. Moving on, we walked the length of the extensive pedestrian shopping streets, apparently Strøget, one of the streets, is the longest pedestrian street in the world. Of course we visited a few of the shops along the way, though not the 4-storey Bodum store or all of the other Danish brand flagship stores. After making our way around the city we popped into "BoomTown", the extremely smoky netcafé with broken stools that I mentioned earlier. From updating the blog it was time for lunch before we hit a few museums, namely the Dansk Design Center and the Museum Glypotek.
We first stopped at the Design Center, which had an exhibit called "North", featuring items designed for the harsh northern environment that Scandinavia features, especially the cold (and in places dark) winter. It went through month by month with a few items on display and video projections to show what has been specifically designed and how it is used. Of note were hydrofoil kayaks for the summer months and in Charles' opinion the shortness of the exhibit. There was also a special light wall composed of hexagonal prisms with lines of varying colours and widths, with light shone through them. This created a sight that looked different from every angle, providing an every-changing viewing experience. Finally there was an exhibit of 100 design icons from the 20th century, which featured international icons like the TGV from 1976 (30th anniversary this year!) and more local icons like the roof window, which we have only ever seen once before, in our room in the attic in Prague on our last trip.
Diagonally opposite the Design Center is the Ny Carlsberg Glypotek, which is partially closed for refurbishment at the moment, due for full reopening in June. The reduced exhibit was a "best of" selection, featuring several statues, Egyptian and other ancient works, and paintings, mainly from the impressionist period. Due to the reduced exhibit the periods of the works were mixed, providing contrast between the older works that sat next to the odd 20th century piece. The Glypotek gave off a mini-Louvre feel with the marble construction, and centre built around a central square, which in this case featured a glass-domed roof over it, allowing the growth of non-native plants in the courtyard garden. Of course the centre managed to keep the café and shop opened during the renovation, allowing Charles to purchase a mini reference book on 20th Century art. Leaving the Glypotek around 3pm, we had no time to visit any other museums, all of which close at 4pm in the afternoon in winter, with last admissions usually at 3pm.
We purchased some more baguettes from a bakery at the smoke-filled train station on the way back to the hotel, where we planned our route for the next day's activities. Around 5:30pm we had our dinner and got ready to head out to the Palads cinema, across the square from Tivoli and built in 1906, to see the 6:45pm session of Pride and Prejudice. This older cinema, with reserved seating, was again cheaper than home, despite everything else in Denmark being more expensive than home. Again we were in a small basement auditorium, though the seats were comfortable and presentation adequate. The movie was a good value, traditionally enjoyable film, with good humour and a compelling story. As usual we enjoyed Dame Judi Dench's performance, and both agreed that Keira Knightley did a good job as Elizabeth. We had a good audience who laughed frequently to the witty jokes and subtle humour in the story and seemed to enjoy it just as much as we did.
We made our way back to the hotel in the busy night, as, despite the cold, Friday night was still a busy time in Copenhagen, which seems to come alive in a different way at this time.
We had another one of our relaxed mornings on Saturday in Copenhagen, eating our nice "Weiner Brot" (local Danishes) as part of the hotel breakfast before setting out on foot.
This time we headed east from the main station to the banks of the "Sydhavnen", the main waterway past the city, connecting it to the ocean. This old port area has been done up, with only a few reminders of its past remaining, making for a nice clean waterfront environment that teases you with memories of the past. We walked north, past the old bank with its twisted spire and the city centre, heading to Amalienborg Palace. Almost there, we walked across the canals and down the charming streets of "Nyhaven", the so-called "New Harbour", which is now an old and trendy Amsterdam-esque part of town, with many moored shallow-draft boats and parking right up to the canal edges. Just a little further north along the water, with a clear view of the royal docks, we entered the small gardens of the palace, spruced up with a little modern art that is sure to be a source of controversy for the royals.
The design of Amalienborg Palace is simple but satisfying, with the main buildings being built in a square around a huge cobblestone courtyard with a statue in the middle. To the water (eastern) side there are the gardens, and to the city (western) side there is the royals' Marble Church, with the 3rd largest dome in Europe. The symmetry is beautifully simple and makes it all very easy to navigate. In the main centre square there are royal guards stationed on each corner and at selected doors, sometimes marching around with their bayonet-equipped rifles. At the palace there was the royal family's private museum, which we decided to not visit. Whilst we did get to see some action from the royal guards, we didn't see any members of the royal family, including Princess Mary, so we'll have to rely on the paparazzi.
Heading inland (west) from the main square, we walked around the Marble Church and through the northern parts of the city. After walking along quiet streets past mostly residential buildings we came to the gardens of Rosenborg Slot. These large gardens are criss-crossed by many paths, travelling through the park and joining the different areas, including a new children's play area. There was still a bit of snow cover from when it last snowed, giving us our first semi-thick (and semi-clean) snow experience of this trip. Down the end of the park we could see the main Rosenborg Slot (castle) itself, as well as the other buildings, housing the royal guard museum and crown jewels display.
After walking around the castle complex we stopped in for a bit of lunch at some nearby shops next to the underground S bahn and Metro station. Charles didn't want to visit the crown jewels after the diamond museum in Antwerp, so we continued westward from the castle to the wide lake/canal running around the western side of the city.
The canal itself was extremely frozen, with very little water flow resulting in thick ice sheets covered in snow. Although it was tempting for us to go off the path and test the ice, common sense prevailed before our curiosity had us in freezing water in the middle of a canal in Copenhagen! Walking along the canal brought us around to the southern end of town, where our hotel and the train station are, allowing us a quick stop in our room before heading out on foot once more.
Continuing south from our hotel we walked through the poorer part of the city, across a park and up through the Carlsberg Brewery complex. There are several older buildings next to the new brewing facilities as part of the complex, some detailed with the swastika, which used to be part of the company's logo. On the southern side of the complex, we headed around to the east to enter the Visitor Centre, for the self-guided tour. It was different to the Heineken "Experience" that we explored in Amsterdam, with a greater emphasis on the beer making process and how it has evolved over the years. We walked through the old storehouses and processing buildings to see how the beer was made, after starting out by viewing the bottle collection, which features more than 10000 bottles, and holds the Guinness World Record. From the production side of things there is a bit about the company's history and also that of some of the other beers it owns, followed by the Carlsberg Stables, where the promotional horses are kept. The next area is the newer part of the "tour", where one can find the gift shop, the cinema and computers where you can record a video to email to people. The movie here was not as good as the one at Heineken, which we uploaded to the blog, but it did get points for having water rain down in front of the screen at one point. The tour then comes to a close with a visit to the Jacobsen (their premium beer brand) Bar, where you can take advantage of your 2 free beers, or purchase other beverages and food. Charles had 2 Carlsbergs whilst I got adventurous and had a Carlsberg and a Tuborg Gold. We left at about 3:30pm and walked all the way back to our hotel for the evening, which allowed us a nice early sleep for the next day's long trip.
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