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Københavns Rådhus' clock tower
Today’s photo of the Copenhagen City Hall clock tower was taken from an open window within the city hall building itself. On a different day I went up in the clock tower on a tour which was pretty cool.
Copenhagen City Hall (Københavns Rådhus)
While the exterior of Copenhagen City Hall is well photographed, after all you can see it easily from Tivoli, I have seen few people inside. Those people I have seen on my few visits through have been employees going about their business as if this was any old building. But it isn’t. Københavns Rådhus is a work of art with enough details to keep your eye wandering for weeks.
Copenhagen City Hall (Københavns Rådhus) interior
We’ll take a little break from the GRF today for a peak inside Copenhagen City Hall.
Between our visits to Glyptotek and Vor Frue Kirke, mentioned in yesterday’s entry, we had a nice lunch at Pasta Basta. It was relatively inexpensive by Danish standards but still set us back at least 4X more than what we usually pay for lunch at a restaurant in the states. After lunch we headed for The Round Tower, a place I had read about many years ago in a wonderful book called, Blind Watchers of the Sky. At least I think it was in that book. If not, I’m sure it was discussed in Music & Silence.
The Round Tower (or Rundetaarn) is a most interesting building. You gain access to the top by going up a long, spiral, brick ramp.
From the top there are outstanding views of the city. And on the very top there is a functioning observatory. We were even able to use the telescope at the top! I believe it’s the oldest functioning observatory in the world at nearly 400 years. There can’t be many older since the telescope has only been around for 400 years.
There wasn’t much to see on a Sunday afternoon with no sunspots. If you really want to see something impressive out of this telescope you’ll want to visit in the winter. It doesn’t get that dark in the summer in Copenhagen.
From the top of the tower you have a great view of Rosenborg and the Statens Museum for Kunst.
In the distance you can see the bridge linking Denmark and Sweden. You can also see an airplane coming into Kastrup, Copenhagen’s airport. The far away, spiral, church steeple is part of Vor Frelsers Kirke on Christianshavn.
As previously mentioned, the Star Flyer ride at Tivoli offers incredible views of the city. These people are in swing seats way, way up in the air. The large tower obscuring the rest of the riders is the Copenhagen City Hall tower.
On the Fourth of July we went to Tivoli Gardens, the second oldest amusement park in the world dating back 165 years. It brought back Independence Day memories from when I was a kid as we went to the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, California on the 4th a few times when I was young.
My wife was reminded that it was the 4th of July at the grocery store earlier in morning by the clerk. Then, when we were getting ready to board our first ride at Tivoli, Vintage Cars, the ride operator heard us say something in English and he says to us, “Congratulations on being an American today!” I thanked him for his well wishes. What does one say to others on the 4th of July? The Danes don’t know any more than I, but I enjoyed his attempt.
Later in the day we ran into the same ride operator on a different ride. This time he was running the Hans Christian Andersen stories ride (The Flying Trunk). He didn’t remember us from earlier in the day but did take another stab at wishing us a happy 4th. This time he said, “Happy Birthday to America!” I had to smile.
I asked him if he had been to America. He said, “No.” He had been to Canada once though. He went to Montreal so he used his French there–not English. The language ability of these Scandinavians is amazing. Some of my students here can speak four or more languages.
Above is the family on the Galley Ships–a ride in which the pirates in the middle fire on the viking ships spinning around them.
Tomorrow I’ll blog some more about Tivoli.