It was the tiniest hotel room we’d ever seen. Cabinn Scandinavia is very cheap, for Copenhagen, and perhaps the rooms are inspired by a ship’s cabin. There’s a bunk bed, then floor space about 1.5 times the width of the bunk. Then a TINY bathroom with toilet, sink and shower. The entire room, including bathroom is about 8x12 ft. What made it OK was the window onto a courtyard with some grass, and parked bikes. Oh, and free internet, which makes up for a lot.
Off to the grocery store as usual, to buy bread, cheese, olives, lettuce etc, for our supper. Everything is REALLY expensive in Copenhagen, and the markup on beer and wine in restaurants is about 800%. So we were perusing the beer aisle, when a local guy hurried in and grabbed a bottle of Danish beer. I thought “Why don’t we try one of those?” The brand was Kongens Bryghus 1454 (Kings Brewery), and the flavor was Prima Mørkt Hvidøl , which I now understand to be “Dark Whitebeer.”
White beer was what they drank at home up to the mid 1800s, and it has a very low alcohol content, only 2.25%. Unfortunately, on top of being very dark, it’s VERY sweet. ICK! It reminded me of sherry. I drank half the bottle in case I might acquire a taste for it, then Kim took a second sip, then we poured it down the drain. It was almost worth it though, to see the look on his face when he tasted it.
The other surprise, in the beer department, was that of the 5 different beers we tested, 2 of them had a VERY high alcohol content, like 10.2% !!! Since one of them was an oversized 1.5 liter can, pretty soon my head was spinning!
Before the grocery store, we took a quick walk downtown, where I ate an ice cream cone with a flødeboll on top. Here’s a photo from 2007, now known as “The Fl
I tried to convince Kim that we should eat dinner in Tivoli but we ended up just peeking through the gates. Copenhagen is charming, with beautiful imposing buildings everywhere you look, and it makes your head spin (even without beer!) because it is always so busy. There are cars, pedestrians and bikes EVERYWHERE!
You’ll notice I mentioned a bike path: most streets have special paths for bikes, many with an actual curb between the street and the bike path, and then another curb between the bike path and the sidewalk. Here you can see the special left turn lane in the bike path. This was an hour before the start of rush hour traffic.
The bikes are well protected from cars, but not so much from each other; some of the young bike riders are reckless and far less law-abiding than back in the 1960s.
You see all kinds of people on bikes, old grannies, fashionable young women in tight skirts and high heels, men in business suits talking on their cell phones, mothers with babies in various kinds of carriers, and almost none of the adults is wearing a helmet.
On our second day in Copenhagen, Kim was busy with the scientists all day, so I arranged to visit the studio of Birgitta Hallberg, a tapestry weaver who I met at the American Tapestry Biennial reception in Florida last year. This photo is one of Birgitta’s small format tapestries.
On Wednesday evening Kim and his scientist friend, Otto, picked me up at the hotel, and poor Otto had to drive through the terrible rush hour traffic. They live north of the city, so we drove along Strandvej, the coast road, which took us close to my old house, and past Skoshoved, the harbour where my Dad kept his sailboat, and through the incredibly picturesque village of Taarbaeck.
I didn’t get any photos, but here’s one of Taarbaek from 2 years ago. We had a delicious dinner and a lovely evening together. Kim has known Otto from scientific meetings for years, but I had never met him before, and neither of us had met Kirsten, so we had fun getting to know each other.
From 1963-1966, when I was 11-13 years old, my family lived just north of Copenhagen. So on Thursday morning, Kim and I took the train to Charlottenlund Station, which miraculously looks exactly the same today as it did 43 years ago.
The 2 German pillboxes in the woods across the street are still there too, although the trees have hidden them from view now.
We walked past the beautiful woods full of huge beech and oak trees, the few blocks to our old house, which looked almost the same, although there were renovations going on. By peering around the wall (which needs to be painted) that now circles the yard, we could see that there is still the same weeping willow tree, although the apple trees are gone. They were yummy apples too, yellow with a pink blush, and tasting kind of like Royal Galas.
Then we set off for my old school, the Rygaards Franska Skole, which was quite a long walk. The school looks the same from the front, but last time we visited it was summer vacation. This time school was open and we went in and had a chat with someone in the office. It felt strange to be inside that building again; the offices are new, but the narrow winding stairways had not changed.
I found out that they still have nuns there, but only 4. We were told that they still wear the long purple habits, with white veils, but we didn’t spot any of them.
They encouraged us to walk out in the back yard, where our playground used to be. Now there are 2 new classroom buildings, and 2 more are under construction.
We found a sandwich shop for lunch, and I had a traditional Danish Smorrebrod (open faced sandwich), roast beef with remoulade and the fabulous crunchy fried onions that I adore.
I also ate frikadeller, which are fried meat patties that my mother used to make, and which I have the recipe for. I’ve always taken liberties with the recipe, including substituting ground beef and/or turkey for the ground veal and pork that the recipe calls for; I am suitably chastened, because the real thing is SOOOO much better. YUMMMM. 
Kim headed off to give his lecture to the scientists, and I headed back to the city on my own, feeling so proud of myself for figuring out how to ride the S trains and the Metro (and how to buy tickets from the damned machines).
I was on my way to the Christiansborg Palace to see the Queen’s tapestries, when the heavens opened, and I was not wearing my raincoat, so even though I had a small umbrella, by the time I arrived at the palace, I was completely soaked. Good thing I was wearing my quick drying nylon pants and jacket. There will be more about the tapestries on Tangled Web, but for now: they are huge, impressive and not my cup of tea. It’s great that these tapestries were commissioned from Les Gobelins in Paris, for the Queen’s 50th birthday, and they are technically awesome, but I don’t like the garish colors or the disorganized compositions. They tell the history of Denmark from Viking Times to the present, and even make reference to the future. Oh well, they do fill the space quite nicely.
After that I walked past the National Museum, and the posters looked interesting, so I went in and was delighted to find that admission is free. YAY! Unfortunately by then I had been walking and standing for more than 5 hours, so my feet, my hip joints and my back all started aching at once. I did enjoy the Viking exhibit, especially the huge Rune Stones, then staggered back to the hotel to rest up before dinner.
More walking, as we searched for an acceptable, affordable restaurant. We passed up a Chinese place that looked lovely but the entrees were $50-$80 each; we finally settled on an Italian place that turned out to be quite good. Kim had Lasagna made with smoked salmon and spinach, which he loved. The restaurant was quiet so we had a nice chat with the young waitress, who enjoys going to the US to visit friends and shop. She loves how cheap things are there, and how well paid she is in Denmark. She told us about going to New York the first time and learning the hard way that it doesn’t pay to have an attitude with customs agents! They asked if she was planning to work in the US, and she made a snide comment like “Why the hell would I want to work here for a fraction of the salary I get paid in Denmark?” After that the customs people decided she should answer a whole lot of questions….
If you ever fly out of Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport, plan to arrive at least 2 hours ahead of your flight. It’s a zoo. We got to our gate with about 10 minutes to spare, so there were some tense moments.
A few hours later, we were settled in the quaint historic town of Chepstow, Wales, just a few miles from my great grandmother’s birthplace.
Stay tuned, it’s an amazing place, with a castle that is the oldest building in the UK, dating back to 1067!
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2 comments:
Oh wow Jan!! What an incredible trip you are on! So much to see, so many new people to meet, so much to do! The images you have posted are very enticing. Plus you have met visited other tapestry weavers studios....Thanks for showing the rest of us stuck here at home. I shall travel in spirit with you!!! :)
It's been fantastic! And there is so much more to write about, I think I could travel for 3 weeks, then write about it for 3 months....hmmm.... I wonder if that's what travel writers do?
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