We started our first full day in Copenhagen with breakfast and then headed off. We were staying in the Nørreport area, which we enjoyed. Not as hectic as other parts of the city, but still centrally located. We decided to use the day to walk around the city. Rådhuspladsen, City Hall Square is considered to be the heart of the city by the guidebooks we read, so we headed off down Nørre Voldgade.
Taking a left on H.C. Andersens (yes, that H.C. Andersen) Boulevard coming right up to the square. As you can tell; the weather was a bit gloomy and overcast, but after having some record heat as we left San Diego, we really enjoyed the cold.
Copenhagen's City Hall is quite impressive. The tower of the city hall rises high above the square.
To the right of City Hall is a statue of Han Christian Andersen who seems to be staring wistfully at Tivoli Gardens across the street.
Interesting thing about taking a photo from this angle. The statue actually holds a cane in the left hand. From this angle though; doesn't it look like the statue is holding a knife and is perhaps not too happy about having to stare at the entrance of an amusement park for eternity?
On the otherside of city hall is the statue called "The Lure Blowers" which depicts two warriors lowing into a Lur, one of the oldest known instruments, dating back to the Bronze Age.
According to local, ahem "lure lore" the bronze statues will actually blow into the lure if a virgin walks by. For what it's worth; I've never heard of anyone actually hearing a peep coming from that horn…..
To the left of the "blowers" is the Strøget a collection of pedestrian streets that winds its way thru the center of the city.
Along the way you'll pass the University of Copenhagen, churches, and buildings that hide wonderful courtyards.
That distinctive obelisk is the Reformation Memorial. It celebrates Denmark's decision to break away from the Catholic Church, transitioning to Lutheranism in 1536.
It stands right in front of the Church of Our Lady.
We took a quick visit inside the cathedral. Which was bright, with clean lines, and is lined with statues of Jesus and his Apostles.
It was quite different from most churches we visit.
Rick Steves Copenhagen Guide recommends heading around the Holy Ghost church and thru a passage at #32 Valkendorfsgade. There you'll come across a lovely and peaceful square (Steves says its "beer-stained", but I think we were there during the off season) called Gråbrødretorv.
Nearby are the two squares known as Gammeltorv ("Old Square") and Nytorv ("New Square"). The Old Square features a distinctive fountain known as Caritas (Fountain of Charity).
This is the oldest fountain in Copenhagen and has quite an interesting story.
There was a Christmas Market on Nyhaven, so we decided to take a look.
It had all those necessities…meat in tubular form….
Traditional Viking Drinks……
And even sleeping dogs…..
Walking a bit further up the street we ended up on busy Amagertorv.
We took some time out to visit the beautiful Royal Copenhagen Store.
We then took a turn and headed down Købmagergade. I really wanted to have a hot dog from Den Økologiske Pølsemand, but the Missus refused. Suddenly, we heard some music, and wouldn't you know it, out of nowhere, a marching band came down the street!
We turned around and headed across Amagertorv and crossed the bridge to the island known as Slotsholmen ("Castle Island"). This has been the Center of Government since the Middle Ages. Many of the most impressive structures in Copenhagen reside on this island.
Confederation of Danish Enterprise (Dansk Erhverv) – which I believe is sort of like the Chamber of Commerce.
And the very distinctive Børsen, the former Stock Exchange.
By now, I was getting a bit hungry. So we headed up along the waterfront until we came upon this retro looking building known as "the Standard".
I'd read about a restaurant named Almanak that took up half the building. The restaurant specialized in modern interpretations of the traditional Danish open faced sandwiches known as Smørrebrød.
The restaurant was fairly empty when we arrived. The very nice and tall (actually, just about everyone is tall here) young lady sat us; provided the one page lunch menu, and went through all the various smørrebrød, their preparation, what was more traditional and what was not. In the end we went with three sandwiches; which turned out to be enough for a light lunch.
Starting with the oh-so delici-yoso Christmas Herring.
Turns out that the Missus, who is not always fond of oilier fish loved pickled herring. And this version, pickled with the addition of beet juice, which added a tinge of sweetness to the savory-briny pickled herring. The texture was almost buttery; the dill helped cleanse the palate; the almonds added texture, the rye bread was moist and pleasantly dense.
The Smoked Salmon was equally delicious.
The sprouts added a slight and pleasant bitterness and crunch. The horseradish was just pungent enough to balance out the wonderful smoked salmon. The pickled lingonberries was also very tasty.
The only clunker was the Homemade Liver Pate.
We were somewhat puzzled when the supposed open-face sandwich arrived with bread on one side of the plate and a bowl on the other. Touching the bowl, I found it to be lukewarm. We could identify mushrooms and chunks of beets which lay on top of a grainy looking mush. This really looked like liver thrown in a food processor, brown-grey with some red bits floating around. The offal flavor was very pronounced, as was the unpleasant texture and metallic after taste. One quick note; I'm not the biggest fan of many liver dishes….my mom used to make liver for me as punishment. The Missus, who likes liver had a difficult time eating this as well. Not wanting to insult anyone; I finished the dish off. But from this point on, if we saw pate on the menu in Copenhagen; unless we saw it first, we just couldn't order it.
We did have very nice service. As for the price? Are you ready? Three open faced sandwiches (we later found out that 2-3 per person is normal) and one bottle of sparkling water…..was over $50 US. Not cheap…..
Almanak
Havnegade 44
Copenhagen, Denmark
But what the heck; we were in Copenhagen and next up….we'd be searching for the Little Mermaid.
The place was pretty busy, in contrast to the rather quite streets. It was strange to see no cars actually driving on the streets. As whole, for a city with a population of over a million, we saw very few cars. In chatting with folks later, we found that any car that sold for less than around $13k was taxed at 105 percent, cars more than that are taxed at 180 percent. Also, we found the mass transit system to be quite efficient, and while not quite on the crazy level of Amsterdam, there were quite a few bikes with bike lanes everywhere.
