Afterthoughts on Copenhagen

In a nutshell, I loved Copenhagen. I loved this history (many of the buildings are over 200 years old). Indeed, Costanza, Mozart’s wife, lived in Copenhagen after Mozart’s death. I passed the building she lived in, which people still live in. It now has plumbing and electricity, of course, but for the most part, it’s still the building she lived in.

Another thing that I loved about Copenhagen was its compactness. We chose a hotel that is in the old part of the city – a place which is bustling with life and is most representative to the spirit of Copenhagen. We stayed at The Strand, a modern hotel on one of the canals, equipped with the Internet (for an extra charge). There was no air conditioning, but it didn’t matter. In Europe, most hotels do not have air conditioning - neither do the houses. It seems that Europe is much more conscious of conservation than we Americans are. And who can blame them. By our standards, a gallon of gasoline costs around $6.50 per gallon! So, in Copenhagen, a great many people just get around with bicycles. It makes total sense. The city itself is compact, and you can easily maneuver around the city with a bike. On our stay to Copenhagen, we only used a bus one time. The rest of the time, we walked.

The food was just as great as Copenhagen itself. I won’t say that the European’s eat more healthy than Americans do (they also have high-fat, salty foods), but they do tend to eat less than we do. There are fewer obese people in Copenhagen. The portions are smaller, and they love to eat such wonderfully healthy treats such as sausages! They are serious about cheese and sausages in Copenhagen. Oh... and BEER! They love their beer. I’m not really a beer drinker, but I found myself drinking ice cold beer quite often on a warm sunny afternoon.

One of the great highlights was eating at one of the great restaurants in Copenhagen, the Leonore Christine. Fodors said that it was the best in Nyhavn, the part of the city we were staying in.

And yesterday, are final meal was at an outside café call Restaurant Gammel Strand. And finally last night, we went down to the canal in Nyhavn to watch the sunset, and enjoyed a “soft ice”, which is their version of what we would call “soft serve” ice cream. Except theirs was lighter and much more smooth. It was put inside a waffle cone that they were making right their in the shop. It was fascinating to watch. It was a circular machine that had a series of little waffle irons that would rotate. The boy making the waffles would position the iron just under the vat that was filled with the waffle mix. He would turn the lever that would drop some batter onto the iron. He’d close the iron, and rotate the wheel, opening up the next iron in front of him, peeling off the waffle cone, shaping it into a cone, and placing it aside to cool. Fifteen minutes later, it would be filled with soft ice.

The Tivoli Gardens were also quite wonderful. It was very touristy – as amusement parks go, but as Jeff said in a comment, it was one of the inspirations that Walt Disney used in the creation of the Disney parks. I can certainly see that after visiting there.

The Copenhagen Botanical Gardens were also very impressive. Photos don’t really do it justice, but I did take a few that should give you an idea of the place.

And finally, yesterday, we visited the NY Carlsberg Gylptotek, a world class museum which featured everything from mummies, to paintings of Picasso, Degas, Monet, Manet, and others. I was very impressed with their entrance, which was really a huge green house, with fountains and beautiful flowering plants – truly a place of peace.

We had a great time in Copenhagen. And now as I type this, we are flying to Amsterdam. We will be staying at the NL Hotel, which is a new hotel catering to gay men. It should be interesting. They seem to be located very centrally and they have free wireless Internet!! I wanted to book us in “gay friendly” hotels, because that is what I have learned to do in the United States. But I’ve learned that over here, that is much less of a concern because the region in general is very open to other kinds of relationships. I didn’t realize it, but Denmark also allows gay couples to be married, which I guess explains why I saw so many gay couples being so open. Amsterdam also allows gay couples to be married, so I would expect the same attitudes. If anything, Amsterdam will be more gay-friendly than Copenhagen, if that’s possible.

We enjoyed our stay in Copenhagen immensely.