Copenhagen 3
I was eager to ride a bike around this City, even more bicycle oriented than Amsterdam, where two wheelers take precedence over cars and pedestrians. I rented a clunker from the hotel, its weight and size making me regret I hadnt looked for a smoother ride, and took off along a dedicated path by the lagoon/canal toward a large section of greenspace, museums and historical monuments to the north. Parking at the stone gate of an immense formal garden surrounding the Rosenborg Castle I wandered in and felt enfolded by the beauty of the building and landscape architecture, completed 1633.
Spurred on by a cappucino in the outdoor cafe, I pedalled east toward the harbor, and across the water saw Copenhill, the incinerator/power plant and snowless skislope, the highest point in Denmark which I’d been told about by my contact at the San Luis Obispo Waste Management Authority.
Nearby stood the Copenhagen Opera House, financed by the founder of Maersk shipping corporation, whose conflicts over design with the architect, Henning Larsen, were chronicled in his book. Both from this vantage and a couple of days later from a boatride, the building looked good to me.
A couple of minutes away I came upon the Christianborg Palace, home of the Danish Government, an equally symmetrical and pleasing design in contrasting neo-Baroque style last rebuilt in 1928.
Further along the quai, perched BLOX, a museum devoted to the Danish architecture which I’d become a fan of.
I paid the entry fee and found numerous engaging displays, glad I selected this among the embarrassment of riches where to spend some time. One was a picture of a cathedral in a remoter part of the City built between 1920 and 1940 called Grundvig’s Church or “six million bricks.” I’d never seen anything like its combination of medieval vault and modernist austerity.
An extensive display featured the work of Arne Jacobsen, in particular the hotel in which our tour had reserved rooms for the last two nights of our Copenhagen stay
A large area was devoted to what we used to call Green Building, in particular a fancy kitchen built entirely out of construction waste
which would have fit nicely into the high-end second homes our son builds in Ketchum Idaho.
On the way back to meet Jan at the Hotel Savoy I took pleasure in the variety of less grandiose urban beauty:
