Copenhagen sparkles through the arctic chill

The guidebook says there are only two months not to visit Copenhagen: January and February. Short days, wind whipping in from the Baltic, leaden grey skies and, this year, snow and ice that even the Danes say is exceptional. I think it's safe to say I was introduced to this city at its worst. Even so, I loved it. Imagine how I'll react to a clement June day...

The first half of this momentous holiday didn't go as planned. Snow-disabled Heathrow managed to get me to America, but left Piers in London. We still got engaged, but on a quiet evening at home rather than at some showy holiday occasion. I spent Christmas up to my ears in doctors, drug lists, lift chairs and all the accoutrement required to try to keep a very ill woman in her own home. Back on my original schedule on the 28th, I flew to Chicago, spent a day with my best friend from university, caught the overnight to Amsterdam, then hopped to Copenhagen, to finally be back in my fiance's arms by mid-day. On the agenda: 5 days of magical sightseeing, fine meals, family gatherings and a glittering New Year's Eve event before returning to the reality of work, mother and wedding planning.

So, let's talk sightseeing. Copenhagen is a small, low, flat city. In size it reminded me of Dublin. In its urban architecture, of Amsterdam, and its palaces of London. The ubiquitous hot dog stands and the wind knifing off the water were all Chicago. It's a melange of many other places, yet design elements from its Viking past, the sleek, pale modernity of its interior design and its vowel-laden, unpronounceable language make it clear you're someplace new.

My favourite sights, by far, were the two royal palaces we visited. Both are heavily stamped with the spirit of Christian IV, Denmark's longest-reigning king and one who was fortunate enough to have both the flowering of the Northern Renaissance and military and financial successes under his belt.


His magnificent crown, on display in the treasury at Rosenborg Castle in the centre of Copenhagen, screams of confidence, power and a fondness for complex opulence. It is an example of the apogee of the jeweler's art. For my money, this single piece of regalia beats the British crown jewels hands down. As does the viewing experience: on this late December day we were almost alone in a treasury filled with magnificent jewels and works of art, able to take our time and linger over details. A far cry from the Tower of London's treasure room, so overwhelmed with crowds that you're now compelled to float by the bling on a moving walkway.

The castle above the treasury is small and surprisingly intimate for royal lodgings, with the unusual layout of monarchs' sitting and bedrooms on the ground floor, while the public space of the throne room is in a long gallery two flights up. The style here is what the English would call Jacobean: intricately carved walls and plaster ceilings, both heavy with strapwork, grotesques, pinnacles and obelisks, black and white chequered marble floors, intricate marquetry furniture. There's a fine collection of solid silver furniture and the silver, life-sized lions that go along with the Danish throne, a couple of eye-popping baroque rooms encrusted with curving shelves filled with china and a rather spine chilling collection of wax figures of former monarchs sitting inside glass booths, like nothing so much as those carnival fortune tellers who move and spit out a card with your future upon it when you pump in a coin. These are relics of a Germanic tradition of private museums of curiousities, which ... amongst other ephemera ... could include life-like wax models of your monarchs, friends and heroes.

The most remarkable room to my eyes, however, was a chamber with mirrors not only on walls and ceiling, but laid in an oval on the floor. When you looked down, you were gazing into an pool that went down forever. Still an amazing effect in the 21st century, it must have been astonishing in the 18th.

About an hour outside of Copenhagen, on the edge of the small town of Hillerød, is the much larger Frederiksborg Castle. A fairy tale cluster of towers on an island on the edge of a lake, its dreamy quality is enhanced by the fact that much of it is a 19th century reconstruction. After a devastating fire, the wealthy industrialist behind the Carlsberg brewery contributed the cash to rebuild the place to its former glory. It then became a museum of Danish history, much of the story told in portraiture.

There are a handful of jaw-dropping rooms, most on a much larger scale than the town palace, and a few mostly original. The royal chapel is perhaps the most magnificent and the most authentic, with lavish decorations on the ceilings and walls so ornate you'd swear it was Christian IVs remarkable crown writ large. Similar to St. George's Chapel at Windsor, this is home to Denmark's highest order of chivalry (the elephant) and the window embrasures are decorated with the shields of current and former holders, a veritable roll call of the world's monarchies and heads of state.

Also of note is the vast great hall, with gleaming marble floors and ornate gilt plasterwork, lined with monumental portraits of past monarchs; a knight's hall called "the rose" (supposedly after the Roman concept of "sub rosa", a place where you can speak confidentially), darkly Germanic with its wooden paneling and lifelike freizes of deer and stags made more realistic by the insertion of real antlers; and an audience chamber with a domed ceiling down a long, window-lined passage, all white, Baroque and encrusted with floating putti.

Admission comes with an iPod-based commentary. It goes into great detail and reveals plenty of drama in the history of Denmark, but you'll realise about an hour into your visit that you've hardly seen a fifth of the rooms, and if you listen to everything you'll need two days to get through. With early closing hours in the winter we certainly had to pick up our pace by the time we reached the mid eighteenth century, and a procession of lovely rooms from the Napoleonic and Victorian eras, including a re-construction of Hans Christian Andersen's study, flew by. Up under the eaves is a 20th century collection, heavy on heroic stories of the Danish resistance and rescue of Jews in the second World War.

Outside, beneath the thick blanket of snow, we could see the outlines of the magnificent Baroque garden across the lake, reconstructed in the 1990s. Even had the weather been mild, I'm not sure I would have had the energy to explore, as the scale of Frederiksborg is so massive that by the end of the tourist route both my feet and my brain were near collapse. Like any great museum or palace, this is a place that needs more than one visit to appreciate its diversity. I look forward to a return.

Coming in the next entry ... the best of the rest of the sightseeing.