For our 35th wedding anniversary, Scott and I decided to visit Scandinavia, the land of a few of our ancestors as well as near the country our son is currently living in. It took about 17 hours of travel to get there with our first stop being in Copenhagen. Denmark is a beautiful country with friendly people. Here are a few impressions:
1. Bicycles--so many bicycles! The weather was lovely for us but apparently they bike year round despite the cold rainy weather they frequently have which we heard about from a few people. The man who was hosting our Airbnb told us the first four months of the year featured more rain for that period than the previous 150 years. Another woman told us she moved to Spain and only came back to Denmark now and then because she hated the weather. We got a sampling of the rain one of the days we were there. But they still bike no matter what. A lot of the bikes have large buckets on them so they can transport their children everywhere and everything else like groceries, etc. They also don't often lock their bikes!
This picture was actually taken in Sweden, but you get the idea:
As we were leaving the city on the first afternoon, Scott accidentally turned into a bus lane with barriers that made it hard to get out. It was a little stressful as we were sure he would get a ticket or an actual bus would come up and honk. Finally he figured out how to get out of it, and as we drove by some bicyclists, one of them gave us a friendly and encouraging thumbs up!
2. Friendly, honest people who all seemed to speak English. I guess if you live in a small country with just 6 million people, you learn to speak English so you can communicate with everyone else. Whenever we asked someone for help, they started speaking English and were happy to help us. The first thing we did after getting our rental car was to drive into the city to see the cathedral with the Thorvaldsen statues. We parked on the street near the cathedral but didn't know if we needed to pay, so we asked a woman walking by and she wasn't sure but she pulled up the app and paid for us! The Thorvaldsen statues were impressive. The sculptures of the 12 apostles, including Paul, line the walls of the cathedral with the Christus statue being front and center although you can't get very close to it.
Peter holding the keys:
The church with the statues is not particularly fancy on the outside:
3. Lots of kings:
The day after we arrived, we drove up to the Frederiksburg Castle which was the site of the royal residence for a lot of years. It featured a lot of pictures of a lot of their royalty and nobles. The reason we went was to see the Carl Bloch pictures which are not prominently displayed. There is a very large chapel, cathedral-like and then upstairs, off of the large chapel is a small room, perhaps 12x12, not well-lit with all the Carl Bloch pictures which the church has used extensively. Perhaps the lack of light is helping preserve the pictures but it also made them a little hard to see.
The only furniture in the room was this large, very old altar piece that kind of got in the way:
Around the windows were painted miniature Bible scenes, kind of like stained glass:
We toured the rest of the castle but it wasn't as interesting to us. We also walked around the grounds a little which has extensive walks, green spaces and water. After some lunch, we decided to get the stuff we needed at our Airbnb and drive to the temple, then take the metro into the city to do a canal boat tour.
The canal boat tour was a lot of fun. The guide was entertaining speaking in both English and then Danish. First some rhododendron bushes from the castle. There were a lot of beautiful blooming flowers:
This is a giant incinerator which they use to produce energy. You can actually go skiing off that slope to the right:
The royal yacht:
The Little Mermaid has had a hard life, losing her head twice, almost three times, losing her arm, getting lots of graffiti, etc.
The royal residence.
The parliament building:
After the canal tour, we walked to the Little Mermaid and then took the Metro back to the temple where we enjoyed doing a session at my 55th temple--finally the same number as years I am old. First, a picture by the restaurant where we ate some really good food our first night with a view of Sweden in the distance that you can't really see:
The Copenhagen temple:
And that was Copenhagen!
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