Mary-ville

Copenhagen Spire
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This morning we had a city site seeing tour with a local guide. There are only three skyscrapers in the city. These were built in the 50's and after this the city enacted a law to keep the building heights down. This enabled the many city spires to be viewed without crowding from new buildings and left the city with a very open feel. The city is very flat and it is a way of life for the people to ride bikes. There are special allocated road areas everywhere for riders as well as special trafic lights. Some bikes have special carts on the front which are used to transport infants, animals, shopping, mother-in-laws... It is expected that children once they are 9yrs, will ride themselves to school on their own, and that by 3yrs they must have their own bike.

Canal side living
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Our first stop was Fredrichs Palace. Here we were not allowed to take photos inside, and had to don special shoecoveres over our shoes so we would not damage the floor. I think they just wanted us to polish the floor for them! We were taken through a few of the rooms, including the "Big" room, the Thrown Room and the Dining Room. These rooms were not as opulently decorated as I would have thought. In the tapestry room all the walls were decorated with modern tapestries which were unveiled only earlier this year. Each tapestry represents a period on time and each tapestry a pictorial representation of impotant events in Danish and world history. This palace is not lived in by any of the royals and is only used for state functions etc.

Danish pastries... yum!

City bike parking
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Our next stop was a photo stop at the Royal Summer Palace. We were dropped off at a nearby harbour which gave us a view of the new Danish Opera House. We then walked through local streets to the courtyard of the Palaces. There are four identical palaces which all face the central courtyard. The current Queen lives in one of these Palaces, and another is being fully renovated for Prince Frederich and Princess Mary. The queen's palace is guarded by palace guards, which look remarkedly similar to those Buckingham palace, right down to the bearskin hats, only their uniform is dark blue rather than red. The other two palaces of the four have been divided up into stately homes for wealthly and influencial people.

Have cart, will cary baby...
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The little mermaid statue, made famous by the Hans Christian Anderson tale was our next port of call. It was surprising to see how close this was to the embankment and easily reachable. Our guide told us stories of how frequently the young folk of Copenhagen will dress her fully in clothes, or other some such items as post-it notes. She has been be-headed twice and had one of her arms amputated and once been blown off her resting place with dynamite. Each time she is restored to her riteful place, and tourists clammer to see her and take photos (us included).

Royal Winter Palace
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The tour ended with us being dropped off in the centre of town near the statue of Epselon, the founder of Copenhagen. We were given an hour to have lunch and a quick wander around before the beginning of the afternoon optional tour. We went into a local shopping centre and shared a chicken BLT and a very large piece of Strawberry shortcake and drinks. This was $217DKK - about $52AU.

Generally everything is expensive here, and we have decided to just pay out the money and enjoy. Our guide tells us that the tax rate here is very high - with income tax and a 25% GST, it averages out at about 50-60% tax paid by all. Their earnings are quite good, but they get a lot of services from the government, including free dental, medical (including all specialists), schooling, university, Aged Care - just about everything you can think of. The hospital waiting times vary, but 6weeks for cataract surgery or up to a maximum of two months for other specialties.

The Little Mermaid
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Our afternoon tour took us on a drive for about an hour, first for a photo opportunity to the gates of the Royal winter palace. After this we stopped at an old palace which is now the location of a museum of Danish Royal heritage items. You could spend a full day here but our time was limited. First we were in the room utilised by the ladies and men of the court, the walls were lined with decorated leather, and the ceiling decorated in plaster motifs, including deers which had real horns mounted on their heads. It was then into the royal church, where the walls are lined with family crests of the members of the Order of the Elephant. Each person who is admitted to the order gets to design their own coat of arms. The most recent addition to the wall is the crest of Princess Mary.

Epsalom Statue
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As we moved through other rooms, the ceiling decorations get more ornate with more guilding. The money spent on these rooms in times gone by was supposed to represent the power of the royal army. Money "wasted" on superfluous decorations meant that there was also plenty of money to support a very strong army. After a brief stop at a local souvenier shop is was back on the bus and the return journey to the city.

After a short break, Joe went off to meet his friend Frank for dinner while I signed up for the optional dinner tour. This first took us to a local allotment garden. These gardens are broken down into small fenced areas, big enough for a wmall two or three bedroom cottage and front garden. IT looked like the cottage was self built to any design. Most of them looked like dolls houses. Some of these gardens were immaculately cared for and full of flowers, fruit and lights. These areas are meant for use by local unit tenants who do not have access to a yard. They can come down here in summer and enjoy some gardening. These allotments used to be for the poorer people, but are now owned by wealthly people. There is a 7 year waiting list, and ownership can be inherited (thus the limited number available).

Main City Street
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Back at the coach there was a small glass cherry wine waiting for me to try. This smelled like Benedryl medicine and not to my tasting. It was then on to the restaurant where we were served thick slices of roast pork with crunchy crackling, stewed red cabbage, brown sugar potatoes, stewed prunes, pickled marrow and thick brown gravy. After this it was on to dessert which was creamed rice with hot cherry sauce (very yum!). All this was assisted by numerous glasses of wine. We were given paper Danish flags and waved these while we sang words to a song - once again helped by the wine!

Palace Museum
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Back at the hotel, I saw Joe and his friend Frank sitting having a coffee at the bar. They had walked from the hotel into the city and found a nice place to eat for dinner. They had had a good time catching up on things as it had been a number of years since they had last met.