DAY 21: Copenhagen (Kanalhuset Apartments)

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Another rather miserable day with on-again/off-again drizzle, but we didn't let it stop us and headed off to visit Christianborg Palace - the former home of the Danish royal family and now the seat of parliament.

It was quite an impressive place. They made us put on little disposable shoe covers before we were allowed into the hallowed halls. (I suspect they were tired of cleaning Copenhagen mud off the fancy carpets.) There was lots of interesting history about Queen Margrethe II and how she abdicated in January this year in favour of Frederik (and our Mary). 

One of the best rooms was the Tapestry Hall - filled with maybe a dozen enormous tapestries made in honour of the Queen's 50th birthday (in the year 2000). They showed lots of scenes from Danish history, up until the present day - including showing Queen Margrethe as Eve giving her husband, the Prince Consort, an apple. (Not sure what that was about!) Anyway, I spent a pleasant half hour looking at the details in all the tapestries. They were of a multitude of different styles - some quite Picasso-esque and some more traditional.

Probably my favourite room was the library, which included a little circular elevator in the corner to get to the second level. I assume it originally was a spiral staircase? Unfortunately, we weren't allowed in the elevator to see. 

After the Palace, we visited the ruins of the old castle underground. It was quite extensive but not very interesting and had a silly exhibition about witchcraft and witch trials.

We went from there to the palace kitchens, which were much more entertaining. They are still in use on occasion but there are no facilities for grilling or frying or actually cooking much, so everything has to be prepared at a different palace and brought over in trucks and then reheated! Sounds a bit dire.

Finally, we had a tour of the stables - where all the horses are either white or grey. None of your common brown or black or multicoloured types for the royals.

We were ready for lunch after this, so we found a nearby restaurant called 'Le Pave' which turned out to be very good. I had a Caesar Salad and Jim had bouillabaisse, followed by an enormous pork sandwich, which he had to eat with a knife and fork.

When we finished, it was drizzling again, so we came home on the Metro to rest and recuperate.

In the evening, we went out to dinner to a fish and chip place and had a nice dinner that we didn't really need. 

Tomorrow is our last full day in Copenhagen.

Comments

  1. Barbara14 December 2024 at 13:07

    The symbolism of the Queen as Eve giving her husband an apple definitely makes you go "Hmm".

    ReplyDelete

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