“…if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all
right.” (Kierkegaard)
I was told to start my first day in Copenhagen by walking
along ‘the lake,’ a neat canal-shaped body of water north of the urban core and
long enough to be crossed by four broad bridges. Though cold, the day was
sunny, clearly one of the best the city had seen in months, and a fine excuse
for a bike or run on the dedicated trails or just a sandwich with a view.
My destination was the National Gallery, a massive
institution combining collected European art from the 13th to the 19th
centuries with an only slightly smaller collection of modern visual,
conceptual, and video art in two distinct buildings fused by a glass atrium.
The gallery was a short stroll from Rosenborg castle and the
manicured King’s Gardens, where groups of attractive (and obviously hardy)
Danes sat on dead grass drinking beer in the sun.
It’s true what you’ve heard: beauty may be subjective, but there
is considerable agreement that the Danes have more than their
fair share of it. Spend the day walking around the city and you’re bound to
experience whiplash at least twice and distraction more than that.
The symptoms may be more extreme should you suffer from the particular philia
for men in sweaters that ails me. Le sigh.
It is also true that bicycles are the preferred mode of
transportation and that Denmark is the birthplace of LEGO.
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Model from the Copenhagen lego store
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In much of the city core cars are entirely absent. It’s all
narrow cobblestone streets that every so often give way to lovely town squares.
Each square has a handful of cafes where outdoor seating is
an option even when the temperature is just a few degrees above freezing.
Fleecy blankets draped over most every chair made these seats look slightly more
appealing (though a fire pit would have been much more so).
I spent much of my second day in Copenhagen enjoying the
exhaustive collection of the National Museum. The museum possessed huge
quantities of bones, shards, and artifacts and more information on bogs and
Viking burials that you could possibly hope for – surely an archaeologist’s
dream come true.
After touring room after room of medieval reliquaries and
exquisitely carved altar pieces I was too drained to hit the top floor with its
middle east collections but I did love this PG-13 mosaic.
I lost my camera in Berlin, so on my second day in the city I had only my ancient smartphone for documentation.
I think you’ll still be able to appreciate the canals bordering the island of
Slotsholmen
and the views from the 17th c. Rundetårn (Round
Tower)
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| I did not take this picture |
achieved through a spiraling ascent up a helical corridor
from which the views changed at every turn.
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| From another angle you can see Sweden |
I was graciously hosted in Copenhagen by my new friend
Jeppe, whose lovely sun-filled apartment provided views of the city designed to
infatuate.
But that was hardly necessary. By the time I gazed out this
window I had already firmly decided to accept a job offer extended to me in
Odense to start in the fall. I had already picked out food for Zelda:
been urged to take a personality test by a
missionary to whom my inability to speak Danish provided no obstacle:
and identified the consumer goods necessary for blending in
to this new national stylistic milieu:
I will have to start budgeting for avant-garde leather
shoes, felted wool ponchos, a sturdy bicycle, and of course, a new camera. Wish
me luck, and please come visit!
