Spring sunshine gilds Copenhagen with magic

Copenhagen undergoes a Cinderella-like transformation in the sunshine.  I enjoyed my first trip here*, but besides the palaces and Tivoli, the cityscape didn't charm me.  What a difference it makes when you can look up, rather than snuggling into multiple layers of warmth and keeping your eyes on the snowy pavement.

Turns out Copenhagen is a city of fanciful rooflines, gold-gilt spires and glimmering windows.  Look up and be rewarded.  The exuberantly decorated loggia of Danish Royal Theatre tries to out-do the Italians at their own game.  The gilded spiral of the tower of Our Saviour in Christianshavn is truly a stairway to heaven.  The magnificent dragon spire of the old stock exchange, comprised of the twined tails of four beasts who glower protectively at the city below, is worthy of a fantasy film set.  The Marmokirken (marble church) is a small St. Peters.  The stepped rooflines of Nyhavn combine the look of the Netherlands with the crazy colours of the Caribbean.  (The Danes did, after all, once own St. Thomas.)  Every so often, one of the giddy towers of Tivoli's rides comes into view on the horizon.  The city hall bristles with neo-Gothic crenelations, growling bears, dragons and copper-topped pinnacles.  And it's not just old-world architecture.  The new extension to the Royal Danish Library,  nicknamed the Black Diamond, leans out over canal and pavement at irregular angles to reflect the city back on itself.  Copenhagen's architecture is exuberant, even frivolous.  I'm not sure how I managed to miss it the first time around but, with a backdrop of blue skies, it's unforgettable.

The best way to drink all this in is from one of the canal tours that leaves regularly from Nyhavn.  You'll see the city from a whole different perspective, and get a chance to glide through Christianshavn, a mainly-residential neighbourhood filled with hip flats in renovated warehouses and industrial buildings that's off the tourist track.

Palaces dominated my sightseeing favourites last trip, and I added a new one this time.  Christiansborg houses the prime minister's office, the parliament and the supreme court.  This is the only country, according to the tour, that has all three branches of government in the same building.  The royal reception rooms are also here, and that's the highlight of a tour.  The grand architecture and lavish decor may deceive you into thinking this is a relic of the 18th century, but what you see was only finished in 1928 after a fire devastated its predecessor.

The highlight of a visit, in my opinion, is even more modern.  Queen Margrethe II's tapestries were a gift commemorating her 50th birthday, completed and installed in 1999 to mark her 60th.  Based on sketches by well-known Danish artist Bjorn Norgaard, they tell the history of the country in vivid colours and modern style.  Despite the cutting-edge Scandinavian design, they were woven by the Gobelins factory and fit comfortably in this traditional interior.

And here I confess a family link.  My husband's uncle was involved in their creation and is actually pictured in one of them, so this immediately tops my Copenhagen favourites.  Other sights include the throne room, with its parquet floor designed as guide to help people who can't turn their back on the queen to reverse out gracefully; a massive group portrait of the extended royal family in the early 1900s hinting at the personal frictions that would play into World War I; a drawing room where the Italian style "grotesque" decorations on walls and furniture feature a Noah's Ark of animals, painted by an artist who did posters for the Copenhagen zoo; a sumptuous black and gold ballroom and a display closet off to one side filled with Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica china.

Sitting in Christiansborg's shadow you'll find Thorvaldsen's Museum, certainly one of the quirkiest I've ever wandered through.  Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) was a Danish sculptor who spent most of his life working in Rome,  highly influenced by ... and working in the style of ... Canova.  In fact if you knew of Canova but had never heard of Thorvaldsen (my situation until recently), you might think his neo-classical nymphs, youths and heroes were more of the older Italian's work.  I discovered Thorvaldsen thanks to my husband's cousin, who works here (museums run in the family).  It was well worth a visit, even without the personal link.  Thorvaldsen ... obviously a man with a serious ego ... established and designed it himself.  The architecture is a quirky mix of Greco-Roman with hints of Etruscan and Egyptian thrown in, the outside is covered with a fresco of the artist's triumphant return to his native city, and he's buried in the courtyard.  Inside, beautifully proportioned neo-classical rooms with appropriately painted walls and ceilings provide a dramatic setting for scores of the master's sculptures and original plaster casts.

We also visited the much larger Glyptoteket, a major national museum that's like a cross between the British Museum (sculpture, antiquities) and the National Gallery (paintings).  Opened in 1906, it's right next to Tivoli and it's admittedly a bit weird to be contemplating artefacts of ancient Rome to the screams of fairground rides, looking over the heads of marble emperors to see the loops of a roller coaster through the high windows.  The Glyptoteket is more memorable for its interiors than for any specifics in its collection.  This isn't the kind of place to which you make a pilgrimage to see some famous item featured in your art history textbook, but you'll take a lot of photos of beautiful combinations of interiors and antiquities.

There are some temple-like neo-classical spaces populated with picturesque crowds of 19th century sculptures.  An impressive colonnaded courtyard shows off full-length Roman statuary in imperial grandeur.  The Winter Garden, a semi-tropically planted courtyard at the museum's heart is an excellent place to stop for lunch.  In addition to lots of Greco-Roman stuff, there are representative collections for Egypt and the ancient Near East.  To me, the only collection that felt world class was the Etruscan, which was the most comprehensive I've seen outside of Italy.  We didn't make it upstairs to the paintings; we'll have to save that for another visit.

Having drunk our fill of culture and architecture, we spent our last day ... a satisfyingly sunny and relatively warm Easter Monday ... at Tivoli.  Once again I was struck by the similarities to Disneyland (California) which Tivoli inspired when Walt visited.  And like the Disneyland of my childhood, you can pay one price just to get in to stroll, another to include the rides, or buy ride tickets separately.  We just did the first, happy to wander and enjoy the sights.

The gardens here are as good as the rides, and at this time of year it's a mini Keukenhoff, with impressive massed plantings of tulips and hyacinths at ground level, and flowering trees above.  Areas of the park are themed to match the rides, flowing from an alpine village to a Hans Christian Andersen-style high street to the exotic East to a lagoon dominated by a pirate ship.  Yes, Disney didn't stretch too far from the original concept, he just made it bigger.  There are a lot more restaurants and entertainment venues here than in the American copy, however, making this a much
more grown up place to come for a pleasant day out.  We stumbled upon the Tivoli Boys' Guard just as they assembled for their regular march through the park, playing rousing tunes in classic marching band style.

Sitting in the sunshine, eating ice cream, listening to the boys with a field of tulips stretching in front of me and a mish-mash of fantasy architecture around me.  Happiness.  All the magic of a sunny Copenhagen, distilled and echoed in one place.

*For past Copenhagen coverage, you can check out these links:
Copenhagen sparkles through the Arctic chill (Sightseeing favourites of my first trip)
Copenhagen sightseeing:  The best of the rest (Including Tivoli in the holiday season)
From honey to high cuisine, Danish food surprises and delights