A Well-Balanced Day in Copenhagen -- Museums and Tivoli Gardens Fun -- 7/30/17

We began the morning with conquering the Danish clothes dryer.  I decided to dry everything to skabstort,"cupboard dry", which hopefully means that it will be dry enough to put away, but not shriveled to Smurf-sized clothing.

After brunch at Espresso House, which I liken to Denmark's answer to a combination of Starbucks and Panera, we headed out in search of the Dansk Jodisk Museum.  Along the canal, we stumbled across a mini trampoline playground in the middle of a sidewalk.  Of course, the kids had to try it out.

A little farther down this same sidewalk, we discovered this combination basketball court and soccer field for public use.  If you look closely, you will see that the soccer goal is underneath and behind the basketball goal on each end.  Danes are very efficient people.  I thought this was a great idea!

We had some flashbacks to the mermaid quest today, as we were trying to find the Dansk Jodisk Museum (Danish Jewish Museum).  It seemed to be hiding from us.  Dan was able to get wi-fi for a bit from a museum that we passed, so he mapped it on his phone and took a screenshot.  (We have our data turned off on our phones to avoid huge charges, so we try to use wi-fi when we can.)

It looked like we were right on top of it, and we still couldn't find it.  We did find this nifty jousting training apparatus outside of the Tojhusmuseet (the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum).  Jack gave it a try.

Jack and Hadley also took some pics as royalty while Dan used the wi-fi.

We finally found the museum tucked away in a corner of the Royal Library Gardens.  The fountains cascade into the pool once every hour, so we managed to be there at just the proper time.

That was the Old Royal Library in the background.  It was not open for viewing.
Back  to the Dansk Jodisk Museum...the reason we chose to tour that museum is because Lyndon (and Sidney two years prior) studied the Jewish plight in Denmark during WWII in Mrs. Sloop's Literature class in 5th grade this past year, during her study of the book Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.  The book is set in Copenhagen.  The Danish Resistance Museum, which told the story of the Danish people's resistance to the Nazis and their rescue of almost every Danish Jew, burned down in 2013.  They saved all of the artifacts and are rebuilding the museum to re-open in 2018.  This museum had a small portion of artifacts relating to this same time period, so we visited it.  Here is an explanation of the rescue activities during WWII.

Here are some artifacts from that time period, as well.

After we left the Dansk Jodisk Museum, we explored more of Slotsholmen, which was the section of the city in which Copenhagen originated.  We were just beginning to view the outside of Christiansborg Slot (Christiansborg Palace), the current home of Danish Parliament, when it started pouring rain.

We hid in an archway for a few minutes until the rain stopped.  Here is a picture showing more of the complex from a distance.

Our next stop was the Ny Carlsburg Glyptotek (glyptotek means "a collection of statues"), which is the extensive collection of ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman sculptures of Carl Jacobsen, the son of the founder of Carlsberg Brewery. The museum also has a large number of French impressionist paintings, which Dan and I love, so this was a must-see for us.  

The museum begins in the Winter Garden.  The beauty of this enormous room is so hard to capture in a picture, but we tried, anyway.

Then, we moved on to the Egyptian artifacts.  This statue of a hippo dates back to 3000 BC and is the oldest in the collection.  It is crazy to think that this statue is over 5000 years old!  

On a work-related note, this sculpture depicts an ancient Egyptian embalming scene.

This is a sculpture of the Jackal-headed Anubis, God of Embalming from the Temple at Luxor, dating to around 1400 BC.  

We were also able to see lots of sarcophagi and several mummies.  We learned that more recent mummies (around 300 BC, if I am remembering correctly) were entombed with a beautiful painting of their face placed over their actual face.  We were able to several of these paintings, which was so interesting.  They just looked like normal people.  You tend to forget this when you think about Egyptian mummies.

The next exhibits were the Greek sculptures, which led to the Roman sculptures.  These culminated in the Roman Hall.  Again, pictures just don't do it justice.

The French artwork was displayed in such an interesting way.  They displayed the pieces in reverse chronological order, so you saw the more familiar impressionist works first.  Then, you went back in time to see how their works began with more classical training before impressionism developed.  We were able to see works by Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin and many more.  This museum has the world's largest collection of Gauguin paintings.  

Filled to the brim with knowledge for one day, it was time to let off a little steam at the neighboring Tivoli Gardens. This is another of the must-see items in Copenhagen.  It is the second-oldest amusement park in the world, opening in 1843.  Walt Disney visited it, and it inspired him to create Disneyland.  

It is honestly one block from the museum we just visited, right in the middle of town.  You can see other Copenhagen landmarks in the background.  This is in the Asian-themed section of the park.  The kids rode lots of rides.  It was so interesting to see how they compare to rides in America.  This balloon ferris wheel began operation in 1943 during WWII.

While the kids were on the ride, Dan and I looked over at a nearby movie screen.  They were showing Grease in English with Danish subtitles, which really made us laugh.

Lyndon and Hadley rode one of the world's oldest wooden roller coasters, built in 1914.  Each car has an operator riding on it to manually use a hand-break on the large hills to keep it from building up too much speed.  I don't know why I didn't get a picture of this.
We found the Grand Prix, which is a game of chance similar to the Fat Albert game at our local fair, with one major exception.  It uses mechanical bicycles instead of live rats.

This boat ride is similar to the Himalaya ride at the local fair, but much cleaner.

I like to equate this ride to the Scrambler in America.  Again, but much cleaner...

These flying viking dragon boats are the Danish version of Dumbo.

We took a break from the rides to eat dinner at one of our favorite restaurants that just happened to be at Tivoli.  You guessed it...Wagamama! Yay!

After dinner, it was back to the rides.  This was the most fascinating ride to our family.  Think of It's a Small World, but with a Hans Christian Andersen storybook theme.  Hadley particularly enjoyed this one, because her 3rd grade teacher, Ms. Martin, read several Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales with them this past school year.

You ride through the storybook scenes in a flying trunk, which is apparently another one of his stories.  Here is the Thumbelina scene.

These mermaids were easy to spot in The Little Mermaid scene.

The Little Match Girl was one of Hadley's favorites, as she studied it in school.  Such a depressing fairy tale...

Last, but not least, all of the kids were fascinated with the Snow Queen, as they have seen a ballet of this story several years ago.

As it grew darker outside, all of the rides and gardens were lit so beautifully.  They end the night with Summer Illuminations on the small lake inside the park.  It was a light show using smoke, lights, water and fire, set to beautiful music.  We all really enjoyed ourselves.  What a jam-packed but fun day!

Exploring beautiful Copenhagen on a quest to find a mermaid -- 7/29/17

We took an early flight from Dublin to Copenhagen and arrived to rainy skies.  We rode the Metro (subway) to the Kongens Nytorv stop and walked about 5 minutes to our apartment home for the next few days.  After getting settled in, we headed out for lunch and to explore a bit of Copenhagen.  The rain stopped and the skies began to clear as we walked to the Nyhavn harbor area.  Words really can't describe the beauty of this city.

Jack found a huge anchor to climb on, and he gave out a big "Ahoy there" shout, which was his camp greeting this summer at Camp Sea Gull.

Here is another view of the harbor with a bridge in the background.  

The Copenhagen Opera House is directly across the harbor from Nyhavn.

The Little Mermaid sculpture in Copenhagen harbor is one of the must-see sights.  It was created in 1913 to commemorate the fairy tale author, Hans Christian Andersen, as he lived most of his life in Copenhagen.  I knew it was in the harbor, but I just didn't know where.  After much walking, we finally found it on a map, and it looked like we just had to keep walking North around the harbor.  On our quest, we discovered Amaliehaven, a beautiful garden near Amalienborg and Frederiksstaden, which is the royal compound, for lack of a better term.  There are multiple palaces on one central square.  It is still home to the Royal Family.  

(You can see the Opera House across the harbor in the background.)  The other end of the square faces Frederikskirken.  Its dome is one of the largest in Europe and is modeled after St. Peter's in Rome.

Still no mermaid to be seen, so we kept walking....and walking.  Everyone once in a while, I would ask someone.  Most people would say, "We are trying to find it, too."  I did have one man finally point us in the right direction after he heard me say "Where is this blasted mermaid?!?" He said, "I understand.  We finally found it a while ago."  He had the same defeated look on his face as all of our fellow mermaid seekers.  We finally found tour buses and hoards of tourists, which meant we were in the right spot.  Here is The Little Mermaid sculpture.  It was a little like finally seeing the Mona Lisa -- much smaller than we expected and surrounded by people. At least, we can check that off of the list.

We hiked back to the apartment to have a little downtime after our early flight.  A few hours later, we decided to head across the harbor to the same side as the Opera House.  Here is the view from the bridge.

Dan read about Copenhagen Street Food, which is a huge food hall with lots of different food trucks inside of a warehouse.  It sounded interesting, so we thought we would give it a try.  The place was packed with people.  It was awesome!  Here was my dinner from the French food truck.  In case you were wondering, those are frites fried in duck fat.  I shared with all of the kids.  They were so delicious.  The kids didn't want any of my pate or cornichons or green beans.  Imagine, that.

Dan took lots of pictures inside the food hall, because it was such an interesting concept.  Maybe one of those empty furniture plants in Lexington could sustain a miniature version.

Jack and Hadley wanted in on a picture from the balcony of the food hall.

After dinner, we enjoyed some dessert outside of the food hall.  They had chairs lined up right on the harbor, so we enjoyed the beautiful evening.  (It was still somewhat light outside at almost 10:00 PM.)

 Here are a few pics of the surrounding view.

They also had a small playground made of seagull sculptures.  Maybe it wasn't intended to be a playground, but plenty of kids were using it as such.  One of the seagulls even had a slide down its back, so I am assuming the sculptures serve a dual purpose.  

We returned home to the apartment, and I knew that I needed to tackle some laundry.  Only one problem...the washing machine was in Danish.

After about 30 minutes with Google translate, I finally figured it out and had the first load of laundry in to wash.  Tomorrow, I will tackle translating the dryer...Stay tuned!