After having been closed for renovation for a couple of years the most prestigious hotel in Copenhagen, the Hotel D'Angleterre is (almost) open for business. Some renovations still remains but it has opened its doors for guests.
Two years ago Copenhagen was hit by torrential rain and thousands of cellars were flooded. The work to try to prevent that in the future has already been under way in many places and now the time has come to my neighborhood in Valby. For the next couple of years a 2.5m wide and 2.5km long tunnel will be dug from the lake Damhussøen under the park Vigerslevparken to the beach at Åmarken. When finished it should be able to transport a huge amount of rain water, when (not if) Copenhagen is hit by a new rain storm. As a bonus it also should improve water quality at the beach, so maybe it will be possible to dip your toes there in a not too long future.
When the inner Copenhagen harbour along Klavebod Brygge was closed down for shipping, the area was turned over to free enterprise, and the big corporations and hotel chains quickly put up a lot big new buildings. With little or no regulation this area is devoid of people outside of business hours and it's without any soul. Now the authorities have realized their mistake and they're trying to do a bit of an upgrade to make it more people-friendly. The new boardwalk called Copenhagen Wave will be ready for the public by the end of August.
These days the Copenhagen Jazz Festival is in full swing, so if you're around the city you'll get plenty of chances to listen to some great jazz. And a lot of them are for free as well. This band, the Orion Brass Band, started out near Nørreport Station with a few numbers before they went on a parade through the inner city.
During a family visit on Fünen, the island in the middle of Denmark, we ventured out before dawn to the little harbour of Klintebjerg to catch the sunrise. The GoPro Hero3 cam naturally went op alongside the Nikons and the Canons and this is the result of that little experiment. A truly glorious sunrise.
One of the must-sees for many tourists in Copenhagen is the Round Tower, Rundertårn in Danish. Built by Christian IV in 1632 it is still used as an observatory, though much better ones has replaced it, so it's now mostly for show. The view from the 30m tower is a nice one as most of the buildings in the inner city is lower than the viewing platform.
The church seems to have been moved outdoor here to attract new customers in Ørestaden. It is of course nice with some life in the new areas, but I don't think many of the local residents were attending this service on this Saturday.
Yesterday I showed you one parking solution for the bicycles of Copenhagen. This is another one, albeit probably not an approved one. Placing you bike where everyone has to squeeze pass it with prams, shopping backs and the like, will certainly earn you some nasty remarks.
Parking is a problem in Copenhagen, not only for cars but for bicycles as well. This is one, maybe impractical solution from Ørestaden.
Around Copenhagen there's a lot of gardens like this, where people living in the city in an apartment can rent a place to grow some of their own. This plot of land with small-scale agriculture is placed in Ørestaden and is fairly new, but others go back decades. Called kolonihaver in Danish they're are not easy to get, as the waiting lists of the most popular ones are thirty years or more long.
The modern constructions in Ørestaden are nice to photograph as you can always find a new angle to catch. This one is from the Figure-8 building by BIG, and I've tried to catch the slanting lines so that they're horizontal instead.
The construction of the new Nørreport Station in Copenhagen is taking shape. Below ground the work seems to have come to an end and above the new buildings that will house ticket office, kiosks and the like are beginning to look good. It will still take a year or two before the whole station is finished, though.
This summer in Copenhagen has yet to show some real summer weather for more than a few days. This time lapse was filmed over a few days of grey in the end of June.
Even in the middle of the city you'll get wild flowers like this. It seems like the city gardeners are following a new policy as these pockets of explosive growth are left to their own devices, where they would have been mowed rigorously and savagely been kept down a few years back. And good it is, as they don't hinder traffic and actually give joy to most, except of course those with severe hay fever.
On my way to work I often see this one going at speed down the bicycle lane. And it is a kind of bicycle though more streamlined than most. Perfect for rainy days, I guess, but I'm not sure how comfortable it is.
This oversized trash can is part of a campaign to get people in Copenhagen to use the trash cans instead of littering. I hope it's going to work because, as I've told about before, the city has become increasingly dirtier over the last ten years. And the main reason is that people just don't seem to care about their trash. Somebody else will pick it up, right? Well, yes it's going to be picked up eventually by the municipality but it costs the taxpayers (that's all of us, remember) a bundle each year just because a lot of people, young and old, can't be bothered to walk a few extra steps to the nearest trash can.
The tourists in Copenhagen gets more and more options to get around. I haven't seen these golf carts before, and they might look a bit flimsy in the heavy traffic of the inner city, but they seems to work fine here.
My latest time lapse from Copenhagen is this one. Taken on Constitution Day, which in Denmark is the 5th of June, it starts very symbolic at the Danish Parliament Folketinget at Christiansborg Palace with the statue of King Frederik VII in the foreground. He was the king that decided to give Denmark a Constitution based on democracy in 1849. The rest of the time lapse will take you through many of the squares in the old park of the city.
Copenhagen is renowned for its bicycle culture, and with more bicycles in the city than people, traffic jams are not only evident in the streets with cars, lorries and buses. It's also a problem on the bicycle lanes during rush hour. People here seems to be transporting anything possible on their bikes; groceries and kids are high on the list, but even man's best friend seems to enjoy a ride.
One thing often criticized about the newly developed area of Ørestaden on Amager is that it lacks facilities for the residents. Now at the southern end a play area for the young and the young at heart has opened. Called Plug n Play it has a speed skating rink, a parkour area, a street soccer field, a dirt jump area and numerous other activities. And it's free for all to use.
No, it's not Dyrehaven but Ørestaden, even if these deer seem a bit misplaced. This is part of a new trend in Copenhagen. Instead of having a long and boring fence that begs the local youth to be creative with a spray can, artists are asked to use the fences as a big canvas. I haven't been able to figure out who is behind the deer on this fence, but it is nice. The deer progress from an open white field to a dark forest as you pass the Bella Center.
Hidden behind these ferns in the Open Air Museum in Brede north of Copenhagen is a house from the former Danish areas in what is now Sweden. A simple wooden structure that would fit perfectly in those large forests our neighbour has.
Some of the farms at the Open Air Museum in Brede are huge, and it must have been quite an undertaking to get them to the museum and rebuilding them. And then they've had to get the right surroundings too.
A great place to spend a summer day is the Open Air Museum in Brede just north of Copenhagen. Here a host of buildings and farms from all over Denmark and southern Sweden has been moved and rebuilt. Walking around there will take you on a time travel to the 19th century, and it will show you now the people lived, how the land was farmed and lots of other stuff. With animals and poultry, fields and orchards, guides in costumes and lots of informations, the day is well spend here. And it is all free.
The statue of Hans Christian Andersen is looking at Tivoli. The statue is one of the most popular in Copenhagen as tourists flock to pose next to it, or on it.
Yesterday I showed you one of the instances where the city planners of Copenhagen haven't really used their head. Today's photo shows you the opposite situation. After a couple of years of construction, the street Vester Voldgade has changed from a traffic heavy street to a quiet street with a broad sidewalk lined with trees and with room for outdoor-serving. Really nice that the city planners get it right from time to time. More of this, please, and less of the idiocy from yesterday.
The Inner Harbour Bridge and the three other smaller bridges that will connect Nyhavn with Holmen and Christianshavn are delayed. They should have been ready in February but it will be at least October before pedestrians and bicyclists can make use of the shortcut across the harbour and canals. Apparently the construction of the steel elements has been the big stumbling stone for this 200 million DKR project.
When I was a kid the Armoury (Tøjhusmuseet) was a place with row upon row of cannons, muskets, sabers, pikes, helmets and a plentitude of other weaponry displayed in great halls. After a year-long redecoration and rearranging it is now a modern museum with audio-visual displays, a few but great focus points and up-to-date texts. It's well worth a visit, even to someone who has been there only a few years ago.
