After our jam-packed day yesterday, we decided to slow down the pace a little today. The first stop was Kongens Have, Denmark's royal gardens, dating back to the 17th century. They were only a few blocks from our apartment. The gardens are huge, so I didn't really get a good picture of them. Here is the entrance to our main location, however -- the playground.
We spent a lot of time here. This is an overview of half of the playground. Sidney, Lyndon and Hadley are the three girls walking on logs in the left side of the picture. I always think it is so interesting to see how playgrounds in other countries compare to our playgrounds in America.
Here are some additional pics of the kids in action.
I was able to get them to stand still long enough to get a picture of all 4 kids on a dragon. Jack tells me that the dragon was guarding the golden egg at the center of the playground. Seems reasonable.
After a long time on the playground, we decided to have a picnic lunch in the park.
Lyndon and I walked back to a grocery store down the street from our apartment and grabbed some prepackaged sandwiches. The labels were all written in Danish, so it was anybody's guess what we got. We were able to find something to satisfy everyone, though. Here was the label on my sandwich.
According to Google translate it means "hot-smoked salmon chipotle mayo salad red onions". It was quite good.
After lunch, we visited Rosenberg Slot (Rosenberg Castle), which is on the edge of the park. It was built by King Christian IV in the early 1600s.
The moat surrounding the castle didn't have alligators, but it did have huge fish. The kids sat at the edge and watched the fish swim around close to the surface of the water.
Here are some highlights from the castle. This is a bust of King Christian IV. He is one of the most celebrated monarchs of Denmark. It sounds like he was a "larger than life" kind of guy. He lived to be 70 and fathered 25 children with 2 wives and 3 mistresses. He is worth reading more about, if you have time.
This golden astronomical clock was so detailed and fascinating to see in person. It is hard to believe it was made in the 1600s.
This room had panels in the tile floor that could be removed so that a band could play in the basement and be heard on the first floor without taking up floor space. Remember what I said earlier about the Danish and efficiency?
King Christian IV was injured by shrapnel in a naval battle with Sweden when he was 67 years old, but he continued to fight after the injury. He wanted to preserve the bloody clothes he wore during the battle, so they remain in this case today...blood stains and all.
The next room contained a trick chair. Apparently, King Christian IV was quite the prankster. He commissioned this chair to be specially built with metal clamps that would fasten over an unsuspecting person's arms to hold them in place. Then, someone would pour water down the hole in the back to wet the person's trousers, making it look like they soiled themselves. When the newly embarrassed person stood up, the chair made a trumpeting noise like they had passed gas. Remember, this was in the 1600s. Crazy!
After the trick chair, the rest of the tour was pretty tame. This marble room was so pretty, that I had to make the kids pose for a picture
This room had a chandelier made of amber, which is a very rare stone and is known as "Denmark's gold". The wall hangings in this room are very beautiful, as well.
The throne room was quite impressive. If you look closely at the King's throne, you will see that it is made with two "unicorn" horns, which are actually narwhal tusks. The horns were considered to be the most precious material at that time and were thought to offer protection against evil and poison.
This small mirror room was quite interesting. Apparently it was a favorite room of King Christopher IV and included a mirror on the floor.
The basement of the castle contains the treasury and the crown jewels. There were so many people crowded around the crown jewels that I didn't get any pictures of them. These must have been the same people from the Little Mermaid sculpture, because they didn't take a look and move on. I did get this picture of an entire case of amber treasures, however.
Here is a picture of the castle grounds with the moat and gardens in the background.
After more time in the playground, we headed back to the apartment for a bit. We decided to go back to Copenhagen Street Food for dinner. We all wanted different food than last time. The girls and I ate Indian food, Dan had Moroccan, and Jack had French. Here is picture of the food hall from a distance. You can see the crowds of people outside.
Yoko Ono has an art installation outside of the food hall, which I thought was a little random.
The kids played Uno as we sat outside of the hall near the harbor to enjoy the beautiful night.
One last stop on the seagull playground/sculptures before heading back across the bridge to the apartment. This was after 9 PM. It was amazing how light it still was outside.
Tomorrow, we head to Tallinn, Estonia. We have really enjoyed Copenhagen! It is such a clean city and easy to navigate. The food prices are expensive, so you have to be prepared for that, but it is well worth the trip. Everyone we encountered spoke fluent English. It was fascinating to hear them speak Danish to other people and switch over to fluent English in talking to us, with hardly any trace of an accent. Again, I feel like we are missing the boat in America by not tackling foreign languages at an early age, in most cases. Jack and Hadley met a 4 year old French boy on the playground who spoke fluent English. They were amazed by it. I am so glad they are having these experiences as children.
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