Beautiful Beautiful Copenhagen! (A very quick trip to Denmark)

I have the opportunity to tick a new country of my list as I need to take a work trip to Copenhagen. I’m delighted as Denmark has been on my list for a while. I may not get to see much but I’ll maximise any free time and see what I can of the city. This will be a short one but worth documenting.…..

I arrive from Brussels having had some work meetings there so it’s a really short flight (1 hour 5 minutes) to Copenhagen. I’m staying at the Marriott hotel which is on the water and although my room has a view to the street rather than the water, it’s a great location, walking distance to all the key sites that I’m hoping to get some time to see. After check in I get straight out for a walk. It’s only a few minutes walk to the famous Tivoli gardens.

Tivoli is an amusement park built in 1843 right in the centre of the city. Apparently Walt Disney was inspired to build his own park after visiting it.

I continue to walk around the neighbouring streets and I arrive at Radhuspladsen – a big open square with the Radhus (city hall) at its centre.

The office is a 15 minute walk from the hotel so it’s a nice opportunity to see a bit of the city. Copenhagen is practically surrounded by water, there are many bridges crossing canals and waterways and even more noticeable is the amount of bike lanes and cyclists around.

After a full day of meetings we are taken out for dinner to a really nice restaurant called Restaurant Koefoed. We spend three and a half hours over many small courses and although I can’t recall what exactly everything was I did take photos (of course!!) and I do know there were sweetbreads in the bowl and there was amazing bread with whipped butter! It really was delicious and I may have done a check-in on FB to NOMA which was obviously a spoof!! (Very bold of me….)

Today we have a half day of meetings so get a few hours in the afternoon to explore the city. I set out to explore with two colleagues and we head down Anderson Boulevard to find the statue of Hans Christian Anderson….

We continue to the famous Nyhavn with its colourful houses along the side of the canal known as New Harbour. It’s full of restaurants and bars.

We walk through Nyhaven to Kongens Nytorv – Kings New Square. The statue at the centre is of Christian V and was made in 1688. There’s an exhibition called 50 queens around the outside and it chronicles the 50 queens of Denmark.

My colleagues head back to the hotel and I continue exploring. Continuing on to Amalienborg Slot which is the residence of Queen Margrethe II. There are four separate palaces around a cobbled piazza with a statue of Frederick V in the centre. I watch a guard in full uniform march up and down in front of the building…. What a crazy job!.

Onwards to the little mermaid… yes she’s small and a lot of people say underwhelming but I really like her. There aren’t too many tourists around so I get a good look at her from the path and then down closer nearer the water. She was inspired by Hans Christians Anderson’s fairytale and was commissioned by Carl Jacobsen (head of Carlsberg brewery) – his name comes up a fair bit in this town!

There’s been some light rain showers but the sun has come out again as I pass a very picturesque church – St Albans Kirk, built in 1887.

It’s time for some grub…. At the work dinner last night when we were discussing NOMA (the best restaurant in the world), my colleagues mentioned Popl restaurant where you can get a burger by NOMA! I check google maps and it’s a 9 minute walk. Can’t wait to try this…

I haven’t had a Danish pastry so I fix that for breakfast on my final morning. A quick google search tells me one of the best bakeries is in fact the oldest in Copenhagen. It’s a 20 minute walk to St Peders bageri and there’s a significant queue… it’s certainly a popular spot.

After a couple of hours work and a couple of danishes, I have an hour before I head to the airport so I head for the Ny Carlsberg Glypotekt.

The ancient Mediterranean collection is amazing… Roman and Greek in particular

They also have a fabulous Egyptian collection and I spend far too long admiring these ancient treasures.

I read about Palmyra, the Syrian desert city that blossomed in the first centuries AD. It’s not somewhere I’m familiar with and I’m fascinated to learn that it was the centre of trade between east and west during the Roman Empire. It flourished under the reign of Queen Zenobia, who was considered a legendary rebellious queen. Under her rule Zenobia, increased Palmyrene territory considerably. This provoked the Roman emperor into sacking the city in AD 273 and it never recovered to its former glory.

In 1980 Palmyra was added to the list of UNESCO’s world heritage sites.

The limestone funerary busts are particularly beautiful

Nebuchadnezar (604-562 BC), the King of Babylon, commissioned the richly decorated Ishtar Gate. The facades of the Ishtar Gate were decorated with reliefs in glazed tile, representing a dragon Marduk’s emblem, and a bull symbolising the weather god Adad. The processional route away from the city was decorated with lions, the animals of Ishtar, goddess of love and war, They were to
guard against advancing enemies, as is indicated by the name of the gateway: Ishtar conquers its enemy. It’s amazing to see these pieces of the gates in perfect condition all these years later.

Between 760 BCE to 656 BCE Egypt was ruled by the 25th dynasty of kings from Nubia, known as the black pharaohs.