Copenhagen Day 3

Monday September 16th

It was cool, overcast and rather windy for my morning walk but I headed west and walked a loop around one of the The Lakes, a series of 3 lakes that curve around the western part of the city. Being a Monday this was a rather busy area with many cyclists on the way to to their daily activities.

My main activity for the day was a 90 min Classical Walking Tour but this wasn’t until 12 noon and so I spent the rest of the morning doing some planning and washing. It was so windy that my washing fried in an hour so, some upside to this weather!

Today’s tour was covering the period from 1600-1800 and King Christian IV featured significantly in this period. He was born in 1577 but made king at 11 however he spent 8 years in training and gave himself a huge inauguration party at the age of 19.

A few key points of interest picked up during the tour include:

King Christian IV had 29 children with a few wives.
Lego was going broken in 2000 but hired a new CEO who made two major changes:
- the 1st to focus on girls.
- the 2nd to bring in themed toys like Harry Potter and Star Wars.
- The company is still family owned.
Sweden and Denmark: the two countries having the most years of war: 300 years of war.
Christian has 29 kids.
Rosenberg Castle: the Summer residence of Christian IV.
The Torvehallerne food markets were started 13 years ago they weren’t very successful at first. It was only when NOMA became significant on the food scene that this food market became popular.
There is a NOMA chef at Torvehallerne who has a taco shop.
There’s also a guy who is very famous for his craft beer, Mikkeller. He and his twin brother were fast runners and were awarded scholarships to the USA. They didn’t do much running though but they did plenty of drinking! They decided to bring the craft beer movement of the US back to Copenhagen and both set up brewing companies. The brothers are now estranged, so much so, that one named his company the Evil Twin!

The tour finished back at Torvehallerne markets and so I went back and had the same meal that I had yesterday; the delicious mushroom dish.

Even though the sun was out there was howling wind blowing and so I decided I need to spend the afternoon in doors. The Rosenberg Castle was only a 10 minute walk from my apartment and so I decided to head there. The self guided tour took just over an hour and the opulence of the place was overwhelming. The amount of wealth stored in the furnishings, decorations and displays was just staggering. It is well worth a visit if you’re ever in Copenhagen!

I realised I hadn’t drunk a drop since I left for my 12 noon walking tour and so I decided to stop off back at the Torvehallerne markets to try one of the craft beers that had been mentioned during the walking tour. Sadly, I wasn’t able to sample those beers on site but I did manage to sample a delicious Danish IPA from a neighbouring stall, Le Petit.

It had been another fairly full day so I headed home at around 4pm for another night dining in.