Copenhagen Walkabout

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Copenhagen is a great walking and biking city. It's relatively flat, and the sights of interest are relatively close to each other. The weather though is quite varied. The old joke that "if you don't like the weather, just wait half an hour and it will change" is so true here. On this day we had bright sun shine, followed by clouds and rain, then sunshine again followed by a tropical drenching in the evening. But, we had a good day of sight seeing.

We took the S-tog into the city, and walked on the longest pedestrian mall in the world. Most of the buildings are quite old and have character, but there's a few ugly modern ones too. There was a few out-of-place examples, such as a large "Burger King" sign right in the Radhus (city hall) square, and old buildings renovated as commercial premises with what appeared to be complete disregard for the original building architecture and feel.

The Radhus or city hall is a public place where many weddings are held, since it's such a beautiful and ornate building. The city officials mostly work behind closed doors, as tourists are allowed to saunter all over with no obvious restrictions.

We went on a harbour and canal tour boat to see the city from the water's edge. You could see where the British had attacked and set fires in 1801 and again in 1807 and the remnants of the original Royal residence, the Christianborg Palace, which had burnt down.

After the water ways tour, we walked to Christiania, a hippie commune that started in 1971 when some squatters took over some abandoned buildings near a Naval base. It has been allowed to exist as an alternative way of living for about 900 residents - a social experiment where democracy is practiced with no leaders, all decisions by consensus, and no hard drugs, again a decision reached by all of the community. They have a lot of "cottage industry" including handicrafts, shoe repair, etc., and light industry such as bicycle and alternative energy production. The bicycle production has become so profitable, they've had to "outsource" much of the process, and merely assemble the components on site.

There's a lot of support for Christiania from people in Copenhagen, that the city and Danish goverment have a hard time establishing their wishes in this area. It should be high priced real estate, based on it's location.

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