Bjarnarhýðið

Bjarnarblogg

A bear by name, not by nature

Víkingur 100 ára

zaterdag, april 05, 2003

Denmark travelogue, pt 2: We left our travelling hero late on a Saturday evening. The Sunday started early since Þórmundur had to get back home at 2pm when his wife was playing (handball). We got downtown in much warmer weather and decided some more nationalist fervour was in order so we went direct out to Østerport, and walking past old soldier houses from the 17th century (very few original tho) and to Øster Voldgade 12, or Jónshús, Iceland's Culture House, where Jón Sigurðsson lived the last 27 years of his life. Again we pondered the Independence Fight of the 19th century. From there it was natural to head back to town through the very pretty park. We went down to Strøget again and out to Nyhavn again which understandably much more crowded than on the Saturday. From there we went back street ways a bit, and amused ourselves watching the traffic jam resulting from a few police cars parked on the Nyhavn bridge. Again we got out on Kongens Nytorv and this time we headed towards the Royal Palace, Amalienborg. Walking along Bredgade, Broad Street, going there I was reminded that this was where the childrens' author Nonni lived for a year back in 1870 which he later wrote about. I devoured his books as a kid, and used them as guide books when I was in Copenhagen in 1980. At Amalienborg Þórmundur left for home, but I continued eastwards to Langelinje and Den Lille Havfrue, The Little Mermaid. It's not "little", it's Huge. More than lifesize. Fooled by preconceptions, not for the first time. The very old and by all acounts pretty soldier camp there was closed to tourists due to the war, so I walked around the encircling moat, and ende up again near Østerport, but this time I went straight down to Bredgade again so I could walk the stretch back to Amalienborg and cover the whole street. From Amalienborg I went down to the harbour and thence back up to, surprise, surprise, Kongens Nytorv. The afternoon was spent wandering the side streets of the centre, until at 5pm when i was exactly tired enough for the idea of sitting in a pub watching Everton-Arsenal to appeal a lot. This was very nice, apart from the result. A funny thing, in the second half the guy who'd been sitting in front of me turned around and asked something I didn't hear, He then asked in English "Are you Danish" I said "No, Icelandic" and he goes "Ég hélt það" (I thought so). You can never get away from Icelanders *g* Then I went off to the airport to dine with Þórmundur and his wife and Þórmundur's parents who were stopping by in the airport Hilton on their way to Italy. This is now long enough, so Monday comes later.