Rainy Day Exploration

Goddag,

Here’s the scoop on the Real Reason that Copenhagen is “Wonderful, Wonderful!”  It’s the public toilets—nice, clean and---free!  This kind of thing is of utmost importance to some of us.

During the day Studiestrade bustles but quietly.  At night it’s a different story.  There’s nightclub across the street.  People come and go in the wee small hours in large noisy groups.  Often they sing.  Sometimes they argue drunkenly.  Then there was the guy last night, who wanted to do some amateur D.Jing with his car radio.  The problem with jet lag is that once I wake up, I’m awake and there’s no getting back to sleep.

So I set out on a rainy morning with my umbrella.  It poured hard and my trousers soon were soaked, and so was my map.  It just fell apart, but the rain was not cold, so I explored the town and felt pretty good, so I kept walking for about three hours.  I walked down by the old port and along some canals.  Even in a downpour Copenhagen is a handsome city with a lot of attractive and distinguished buildings.

In many ways Copenhagen reminds me of Amsterdam, and no wonder.  Besides the constant proximity of water, the Danes built in Dutch styles.  Bikes prove as common as cars. Nevertheless, the cities feel different.  Copenhagen boasts some broad streets for traffic as well as numerous squares and parks giving it a more open feel than Amsterdam.  Copenhagen also feels “royal.”  Palaces and other references to the monarchy abound—interesting because I don’t think the Danes care a whit about rank.  They are proud of their heritage and adore Queen Margarethe.

Finally I settled on visiting the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek or the New Carlsberg Sculpture Museum.  One finds the Carlsberg Name almost as much as the monarchy’s around Denmark, and, yes, it’s the beer company.  The collection is housed in a fantastically beautiful building inside and out.  At its heart sits the lovely “winter garden” and fountain.  For the thirsty or peckish there’s a café.  I found the art extremely well exhibited with commentary in English as well as Dansk.  The collection is huge so I focused on the ancient stuff.  They have an excellent range of Etruscan Art.  But what I found especially intriguing were the portrait busts from Palmyra.  Palmyra was an oasis town (Now called Tadmor) that tried to play off the Romans and Persians against each other.  One can see both influences in the sculpture. To go along with that was much Greek, Roman, and Egyptian statues that even the British Museum might covet.

And the food?

I liked the smorrebrod so much I went back for smorre!

Pil, you are such a wit.  That’s half true anyway.  What did you get this time?

One with slices of hard boiled egg and slices of cucumber and tomato.  That was my “salad.  Then I had one with a slice of fish in batter dressed with lettuce, a slice of tomato, and some kind of tartar sauce, and one with frikadelle, which is usually meatballs made out of minced and fried pork.  It was dressed with pickled beets and more cucumber in the form of sweet pickles.  I thought this was mighty tasty.  Think of the best and leanest meatball you have ever eaten.  It was better than that.  The smorrebrod costs forty-eight krone or about eight dollars for three.  I realize that sounds expensive, but Copenhagen is expensive, and the smorrebrod gives good value for the money.

Farvel