Copenhagen, Denmark

Copenhagen is a beautiful city, one of our favorites so far on this trip. Denmark is a small country; we were told that it could fit inside Lake Michigan and there would still be room for fishing. This part of Denmark is comprised of many islands. The capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen, is located on the largest of these islands. The population of Denmark is 5.7 million people; the population of Copenhagen is about 1 million. Denmark is one of the richest countries in the world; there is not a lot of poverty here. As mentioned, Copenhagen is a beautiful city, with lots of parks and greenery, as well as canals, running through the city. There are also a lot of bicyclists here, and we were told that they are trying to overtake Amsterdam as the most bicycle friendly city in the world.

We started the day with a - what else - bus tour of the city of Copenhagen. Our local tour guide's name was Ursula. Our first stop was at the Little Mermaid statue. Hans Christian Anderson, he of fairy tale fame, lived in Copenhagen. He apparently wrote a fairy tale about a mermaid, and so they built a statue of a mermaid and placed it at the Harborfront, to honor him. We were told that the statue had been decapitated twice, and each time they had to make another head to repair it, so now they just keep spare heads on hand. Little Mermaid is not Hans Christian Anderson's best known fairy tale, but the theme fits in with Denmark, so they chose that to honor the man. Apparently Walt Disney used the Little Mermaid story and in his version, he gave all the characters names. In HCA's original fairy tale version, they were nameless. They were just called mermaid, prince, witch, etc. Our tour guide is not a fan of Walt Disney because apparently he gave the witch in the Little Mermaid the name of Ursula.

Denmark is a constitutional monarchy form of government. The current head of the Royal family is Queen Margrethe II. She can trace her ancestry back to a Viking King in the 900s. Margrethe's husband is not called the King because he is of French descent. So he is called Prince Consort Henrik (Henri). Queen Margrethe has 2 sons: Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Joakim. Crown Prince Frederik is married to an Australian lady named Mary. Frederik had gone to Sydney a number of years ago, and was thrilled to be able to walk around the city without being recognized. He met his future wife Mary there, and did not tell her that he was the Crown Prince of Denmark for a long time. Finally when their relationship became serious, he told her. Today they are married and have 4 children. The oldest is named Christian. All of the kings of Denmark are named either Frederik or Christian, so it is required to name a child one of these two names if he is the Crown Prince, or in line of succession. When Crown Prince Frederik becomes King of Denmark (upon Queen Margrethe's passing), Crown Princess Mary will become Queen Mary. She is allowed to bear the title of Queen even though she is not of Denmark descent, because the title of Queen is lower than that of King.  Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary, although royalty, try to live much like ordinary people. Instead of having a driver take their children to school, they get on their bicycles like everyone else, and ride them to school. Apparently they do a lot of other everyday things, and mingle with the citizens of Copenhagen. They are very much loved by the locals.

A large corporation located in Denmark is Maersk, which is the largest container shipping company in the world. Mr. Maersk, who founded the company, was one of the richest people in the world, but, we were told by Ursula, that he paid very little taxes. (I guess they have tax loopholes here, too.) Supposedly he felt bad about not paying taxes, so he had an Opera house built in Copenhagen for the people of the city to enjoy. The Opera house is 14 stories tall, with 5 of the floors being below ground. It is on the harborfront. We were told that the harbor water is so clean that you can swim in it (and not glow, like in Russia!).

We passed by a power plant in Copenhagen. There are 2 things that are very unusual about this power plant. First, the plant generates power by burning garbage. In fact, they import garbage from Sweden for the power plant. Secondly, the building is a very unusual shape, with inclined, angled sides. Apparently the people of Copenhagen love to ski, but there are no hills or mountains here. So they built the power plant with inclined sides to use for skiing. They do not use snow for skiing, but they use another surface that feels like snow. They ski on the sides of the garbage-burning power plant building year round.

They also use wind turbines here for energy, and the landscape is filled with them. However, they produce more wind energy than they can use, and apparently you can't store bags of wind.

Our next stop was at Palace Square, where the royal palaces are located. This is also called Amalienborg Palace. The royal palace buildings border an octagonal shaped square, complete with guards. One of the buildings is the home of Queen Margrethe. Our tour guide told us she tried to make an appointment for us to have tea with the queen today, but that she was too busy. There was also a guest house that was as big as the Queen's residence, another building that housed a museum on the first floor, with more guest rooms on the upper floors, and the home of the family of Crown Prince Frederik.

We viewed, from a distance, Frederik's Church that is locally known as Marble Church, this despite the fact that it is not made of marble. When they began to build the church, they planned to use marble. However, shortly after, Norway, which was once a part of Denmark, gained its independence. Unfortunately for the Danish, the part of the country where all the marble was located was in Norway, which now would have to be purchased. Since the marble was too expensive to purchase from Norway, they decided to use limestone instead. They polished the limestone and shined it up to make it look similar to marble, and so still call it Marble Church. The dome of the church, as are most domes, is made of copper. But that posed a problem as well, for the copper reserves of the country resided in the Norway part of the land. Again, too expensive to purchase. So they asked all women to please donate the pots and pans of their kitchens, which at the time were all made of copper, which was then used to build the dome of the church.

One of the most picturesque parts of Copenhagen is a part of town called Nyhavn (pronounced new-hown). This is an area in the city where a very narrow harbor inlet is surrounded by brightly colored buildings, with wooden ships lining the sides of the canal.

Next we drove by Rosenborg Palace. This is the summer residence of the Royal family. We also drove by the Botanical Gardens, which contains 5 artificial lakes that were created in the early 18th century. The lakes were originally created to supply drinking water to the city, but the water was not potable, apparently, and resulted in many people getting sick. So instead they turned the lakes into recreational use.

As mentioned earlier, Copenhagen is a very bicycle-friendly city. Our local tour guide gave us some interesting numbers: 62% of the people in Copenhagen use bicycles to go to work or school; 21% use public transportation; 8% walk, and only 9% use their own personal car for commuting. Car ownership is 25%.

Tivoli Gardens, the famous amusement park of Copenhagen, is the second oldest operating amusement park in the world. When they built Tivoli Gardens, they included "thousands and thousands" (according to Ursula) of flowers to create a landscape not only consisting of rides, but also of lovely gardens. Walt Disney had visited Tivoli Gardens and was so impressed and inspired by the landscaping that he went back to the U.S. and patterned Disneyland after Tivoli.

We passed by City Hall, which has a statue of Hans Christian Anderson located outside. There is a lot of construction taking place in the city, and we were told that before any construction can begin, there is a requirement to call in an archaeologist. The archaeologists then dig very carefully (using teaspoons, according to Ursula) to be sure that none of the rich history of Denmark would be destroyed in the new construction. Only after the archaeologists' approval are they allowed to build.

Next we drove by Christiansborg Palace, which is the seat of government in Copenhagen, housing the Danish Parliament, the Danish Prime Minister's office, and the Supreme Court of Denmark.

This concluded our tour of Copenhagen by bus, but this evening we will enjoy a canal boat tour of Copenhagen complete with Jazz Band. Stay tuned.