Copenhagen, Denmark

We are now in Denmark.  Our first stop is Copenhagen, which we know next to nothing about.  But I now know it’s an amazing place because I have so many photos.

If you wish to see the pictures enlarged, double click on the picture(s).

I did not ask if this too is a Venice of the North, but they have canals, also, and probably claim to be related to Venice.

I will say that canals can do a great deal to enhance the beauty of a city, especially with the right ships and buildings.

Denmark is only a few miles (14 I am told) from Sweden, and it was also home to Viking tribes.  There is little to remind you of the Vikings, however.  

There are other interesting sites such as the first stock exchange (no longer used to trade stocks).  The tall tower from the exchange is the Dragon Spire.  Four ‘dragon’ tails were used to form the spire.

There currently is a Queen of Denmark, Queen Margarthe II, who is the figurehead of Denmark, and she lives in a large palace in Copenhagen.  She wasn’t available for a photo, so I took a picture of one of her many guards.  They wear these furry hats throughout the year, including summer!  They probably use the bald headed soldiers in the summer.

They have lots and lots of statues in Copenhagen.  This is another country that has been around for at least a thousand years and was a successful trading country.  It also was a bit of an empire builder hundreds of years ago.  As such, it often found itself challenged by other countries.  The harbor of Copenhagen had more than one fort to protect it from other countries and pirates.  Here are a couple of the gates of the fort near where our Viking ship docked.  It is still an active fort, but tourists are allowed to wander through parts of it a portion of the day.

Copenhagen, as well as the rest of Denmark, was occupied by the German Nazis.  During WWII, Denmark had a king, and he would not leave his people.  He stayed, and history reports he rode his horse daily through the streets of Copenhagen to let his people  know he was with them and wouldn't flee.  One reminder of WWII is this Anglican Church, St. Albans, which is an English Church.  It was part church and reminder to the Danes of Winston Churchill, who they respect greatly.

There is one statute that is not complimentary of the Danes.  Part of the trading history includes trading slaves and using slaves.  During the Danish empire days, they had the Virgin Islands as part of their little empire.  The used slaves for ‘white gold’, which we all know is sugar.  It took a lot of workers to grow and harvest sugar.  The Danes abolished slavery in the 1840’s, as it was seen as immoral.  If you look closely, you’ll see the field tools for sugar harvest.

We walked about four miles according to our guide and saw several beautiful parts of the city, like this fountain at the City Library:

Less beautiful but more interesting is this building and smoke stack:

It’s an incinerator for all the garbage of Copenhagen.  It even burns garbage shipped from England.  Supposedly the smoke is harmless and they generate a lot of energy here.  But there is more.  The slope on the left side of the building was engineered as a ski slope where in the winter time they have artificial snow.

I have not mentioned that we have three theaters on the ship and can attend movies and lectures.  While we love movies, we are attending the lectures about the Vikings, the Russians, Hans Christian Andersen, and several others which have proved to be very interesting.