Here are my 3 first days in Copenhagen
- The red bus boat tour
- Meeting Ulla
- Louisiana
- Hamlet
- TIVOLI
- Train to Odensa
Our mum's dad (my Grandfather) was born in Denmark and had relations there (and relatives - Ed).
His name was Praben Sprogoe and there also happens to be an island called Sprogoe island in Denmark. Coincidence? I don't think so! Turns out that some ancient relative of ours used to protect the queen and as a reward got an island named after him! Neat huh! Some of his descendants have moved all around the globe but the majority stayed in Denmark. We met only a few but they were all lovely and I would like to see them again.
As you have read from some of my previous blogs we have often taken a Red Bus tour in some of the cities we have visited. HEre we did it slightly differently, we took a boat tour as the city of Copenhagen has a system of canals running all the way through it which are very frequently used by the Danes. The bridges are incredibly low so going under some can be a bit of struggle - ie. do not stand up!!!! The person who recommended and took us on this great canal tour was Ulla - my Mum's second cousin. She loves Copenhagen and pointed out lots of extra things while the tour went on.
Some of the things we saw included the Black Diamond building - which is entirely covered in black slate which had to be imported from Zimbabwe, the new opera house which is a bit too modern for my taste, a big Copenhagen shopping mall, the dock used by the Royal family in Denmark, the Copenhagen harbour, Nyhavn, the most famous place to sit and have a beer in Copenhagen.
We got off the boat to take a picture of the statue of the little mermaid - maybe the most famous icon of Denmark. She is very small and i'm not sure how she got there, but I do know that her head has been stolen on 2 occasions - and replaced.
Half way along we had a quick lunch with Ulla and the menu was completely in Danish - lucky for us Ulla was there to translate.
After the tour we climbed "the Round Tower" which was built by King Christian IV (who seemed to spend half the country's money during his reign but is also remembered with great fondness - I thought that that would be impossible to do). The thing about the Round Tower is that when Kind Christian built it he wanted nothing else to be as grand or stupendous - so he made a law stating that no other building could be any higher than the 6th floor of the Round Tower. So now all the buildings in Copenhagen are almost all exactly the same height.
We walked home along the Strogget - Copenhagen's version of Las Ramblas. Filled with design and clothing stores from cheaper stores to some of the world's best known brands. Denmark is where Lego was invented just before the Second World War and we saw the main Lego store on the Strogget and it was the best store for Lego I have ever seen. The whole store was just covered in every kind of lego you could possibly imagine.
Great first day in Denmark.
The next day we decided to drive to an art gallery called Louisiana and then to the castle that Hamlet was based on. First stop at the art gallery was amazing.
While mum and dad went and looked at the art work Drew and i had great fun. Three floors of things for kids to do. First floor was painting and clay sculpture where I spent most of my time. The next floor was making paper pop-art and the floor on top was for making crazy things with wool including making spider's webs. There was also one more thing for kids (and adults) to do - write a down a wish and add it to "the wishing tree". A normal tree which, when we got there, had already had thousands of wishes tied to its branches. Some of the wishes were hilarious. One person had written "I wish that Darth Vader would be killed by Dumbledore".
Louisiana is a modern art gallery its in a building which was once an old manor house and surrounding the house was lots of water and garden. And it was one of the nicest galleries i have been to in Europe. Below are some of the pictures that my Dad took of the art (its a bit kooky) and the clay model that I made.
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| My clay model |
After Louisiana Ulla drove us to the castle that was the inspiration for Shakespeare when he wrote Hamlet. In actual fact, Shakespeare never even visited the castle, he just heard about it. It is called Kronborg and it is in the town of Helsingor (Shakespeare called the town "Elsinor" in his play) There was a lot of things in there, but my favourite was the great hall which was a massive room which could have been cinderella's ballroom. in the fireplaces in the rooms around the castle they had put in speakers that made a crackling noise and in one room they had a whole room which could simulate and make you feel like you where in a room that was on fire depicting when the castle burned down at one stage. It was kind of bizarre to be thinking about Tudor England in the middle of a small town in northern Denmark. I'm really looking forward to doing something "viking-y", and i'll hope we'll get to something soon.
Did you know that in Denmark, they like to eat their icecream cones a bit differently. By differently I mean massive - 2 scoops of ice-cream in a cone, maybe 5, covered in whipped cream and strawberry jam and a massive thing that looks like horse-poo but is actually chocolate covered marshmallow. I know this because I tried one. You have to eat it with a spoon!
TIVOLI
The next day we went to one of the best theme parks ever. It is where Walt Disney got his inspiration for Disneyland. It has been around for more than 100 years. The front gates look like a roman arch on the inside but on the outside are made of brick. Some of the rides are so old that there is even a person operating a manual brake while sitting on the roller coaster ride as you go around. Another one of the old and popular games works the same way as a chocolate wheel spinner... except it involves three little danish postmen dolls riding little bicycles and if they happen to stop on your number you win whatever they are delivering in their basket. In most cases this was either Toblerone or a box of chocolates. We tried several times to win but each time the postmen passed us by. if that doesn't make sense, i think you should ask me about it.
Another popular ride which was Ulla's favourite was a horse race of sorts. By throwing balls into a series of holes with different values, you pushed your particular horse forward in a race against all the other horses. The more accurate your throws the better your horse did. I didn't win this one either.
Accompanying us to Tivoli was some people from my Grandfather's family. Some had caught the train from a long way to meet us and say hello. Kate came, she is my Mum's cousin and she brought her Dad, Finn who is the oldest living Sprogoe we think. He is 87 years old and my Mums dad's cousin. Ulla came too and her friend Peter who was really great and shared lots of enthusiasm about the high powered rides. Finn was very generous and gave us a hand-drawn picture of a clown - apparently the clown helps you sleep at night and he has drawn them for all his neighbours too. Kate has been to Australia before so she was familiar with me and Mum and Dad and Drew. She is a kindergarten teacher. For the rest of the day we played at Tivoli and lets face it, who wouldn't have fun at a fun park. I can see why Walt Disney liked this place so much.
Tivoli is full of gardens and lovely spots for kids to play and there are lots of restaurants which are all part of the scenery. for instance, there is a seafood restaurant which is on a giant pirate ship on a lake. There is also other things there like an aquarium and its a massive concert venue. Sting was singing the day we went there.
Tomorrow we head off to see our friends in Odense ("oh-den-sa") Aia and Julia and their parents Bo and Elsebeth. Odense is where my Grandfather grew up ----- and it has some old viking stuff as well!!!!
Missing you
Zoe
P.s
BEST BOOK EVER!
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