Spring Break

It’s amazing to me how much time off the Danes have. This week is Spring Break and Myra had an entire week and 1 day off from school. Chad also had 3 days off from work – paid time off! What’s really weird to me though is that on Thursday, Friday and Monday (not Saturday - and everything is usually closed on Sunday anyway), almost the entire country shuts down. All the stores are closed and most people have time off from work. That’s right, no grocery stores were open on Thursday, Friday and Monday of this week. Weird, huh?!? Anyway, we had originally thought we were going to plan a big trip for the weekend, complete with a hotel stay and a car rental. But, it was just not meant to be. We were a little hesitant to begin with, because of the cost, but then things just didn’t seem to want to come together. We couldn’t find a car rental that would hold all of our car seats, without paying a fortune. Then we couldn’t find a hotel to stay in. So, we decided we would just kind of have a staycation. We would stay at home, but go out every day into Copenhagen to do some sightseeing. Even this idea hasn’t worked out as planned. We made it out on Thursday, which I’ll write about in a minute. But, Friday, the weather was crappy and the kids were super grumpy, so we just decided to stay home and rest. Then on Saturday, the weather was even crappier, complete with some snow flurries. And it was cold, we decided we didn’t want to drag the kids around in it, so we stayed home yet again. So, maybe on Monday, we’ll make it to somewhere fun. Anyway, I’ll go back to Thursday.

Thursday was a beautiful day, one of the best we’ve had here so far. Still cold enough though, to need coats. We had originally planned on going into Copenhagen’s Central Train Station and taking a fast train up to the northern part of Zealand, so we could go to Helsingør Castle. But, because of the Holiday, the fast trains weren’t running in that area. So, after much wandering around the Train station, we finally decided on an alternate plan. First, we needed a map of Copenhagen, so we walked back to the National Museum. They have great, free tourist maps and a nice lunch room, so we ate lunch there and let the kids play at the Children’s Museum again for just a few minutes. We tentatively decided we would walk up and go through Rosenborg Castle. But, after leaving the museum, we once again found ourselves walking through Christiansborg Palace again. We decided to find out exactly what the Castle had to offer tourists and how much. We entered the Royal Stables and our kids were begging us to go and see the horses. So, after finding out that Christiansborg Palace is only open from October to April, we figured this would be a good time to visit it.

First, I want to give a short history of Christiansborg Palace. There have actually been many castles that have been in this area. Starting with Absalon’s Castle back in 1167. For many years, there was a lot of fighting that erupted between the kings and bishops of the time, and it was eventually torn down, stone by stone in about 1369. After a few years, Copenhagen Castle was built on the same grounds. It stood there for close to 400 years, going through multiple renovations, until it was eventually pulled down because it was too unstable to continue using and in 1733, the first Christiansborg Palace was started. It burnt down in 1794, claiming many lives and destroying many great works for art. The second Christiansborg Palace was started in 1803 and finished by 1828 and can you imagine how sad it had to have been to have it burn down also in 1884. The 3^rd and current Christiansborg Palace was built in 1907, and hopefully it won’t burn down anytime soon. I think they have put in a lot more fire safety measures this time around. Christiansborg Palace now houses all three branches of government. It is the only building in the world that houses all 3 branches of a country’s government. Several parts of the palace are also used by members of the Monarchy. I find the historical aspects of the places we visit very fascinating. If you want to read more, click here.

We began by touring the Royal Stables. The Riding Ground Complex is all that is left of the 1^st Christiansborg Palace. So, they date back to 1738. The stables were actually quite magnificent and the horses we saw were very beautiful. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get good pictures through the bars. The stables also had a wonderful collection of old carriages. Some of them were several hundred years old. Very neat!

After leaving the stables, we headed over to the Royal Reception Rooms. (Sorry, the pictures aren't great, apparently you aren't even suppose to take pictures in here, so Chad, being the sneak he his, sneakily snapped a few pictures with no flash.) As we walked through these rooms, I just found myself constantly gasping in awe, or something like that. They were so beautiful and so much of the artwork was just amazing! We were lucky to be there on a non-busy day. We were able to wander through the rooms, almost by ourselves. The kids got a little bored of it after a while, and ended up entertaining themselves walking from room to room pretending to be princesses. Of course Lexi’s favorite was the “pink” room, but I loved the Library. Myra favored the “ball room.” It was really a great experience.

After that, we went under the Palace to tour the Castle Ruins. When they were working on building the 3^rd Christiansborg Palace, they came across ruins from Absalon Castle and Copenhagen Castle that date back to 1167. Instead of covering them over, they built them into a room and they have been opened for visitors since the 1920’s. They were a little creepy, not lit very brightly, but I thought they were great. It was fun walking through them and seeing these structures that were so old. I always feel this way when walking through old places, I can’t help but wonder who once walked the same paths as I am.

We thoroughly enjoyed walking through Christiansborg Palace. It was a fun activity. When we left there, we briefly peeked into Christiansborg Chapel. It was very beautiful and simple. Across from the Palace and Chapel is a canal and as we were crossing it, we noticed something different. We've crossed this way many times, but this was the first time we saw that there was a statue in the water! The statue is called the Merman and his 7 Sons. I looked it up when I got home and apparently the statue is based on a Danish folk story: Agnete was a young peasant girl who was walking by the shore as a merman emerged from the waves and offered her his hand. Agnete fell in love with him immediately and went to the bottom of the sea with him, where she gave birth to his seven sons. After eight years, however, as she was sitting by the crib of her youngest son, Agnete heard the sound of churchbells ringing from her old village, and she felt homesick. She got permission from the merman to go to church, on the one condition that she would come back to him after mass. But of course, once on land again, Agnete found that she missed the church and her family too much, and she wouldn’t return.

The statue is a depiction of the Merman and the 7 sons facing toward land, in despair, begging Agnete to come back to them.

(I found this picture online, you can see it a little better.)

Kind of a sad little tale, huh? I thought it was a neat sculpture though! After that, we ended up on the Strøget again. There were a lot of people there, but it was eerily quiet, given that all the shops were closed, except for a few food venues and the Danish Pancake Carts. We walked down to Nyhavn. Nyhavn is a waterfront, canal, and entertainment district that was built in 1670. It was actually dug by Swedish prisoners of War. Apparently it was notorious for beer, sailors and prostitution. There are a bunch of historic boats lined up against the harbor and with the colored buildings in the background, it looks amazing! We walked the length of it though, and I found it a bit lacking. Almost every building is now a restaurant/bar of some sort. The street is lined with tables, filled with glammed up people sipping their champagne, or something of the sort. Definitely not much of a family destination. Still, it was neat to see.

After leaving there, we headed back to the train, to head home. We went out to eat, for the first time since being here in Denmark. (with the exception of street vendor food/bakeries.) There’s a restaurant here called Mr. Chicken. It’s been highly recommended by our missionaries, who eat there 2 or 3 times a week. (We’ve seen them.) It was nice to not have to cook dinner! Fun ending to a fun day.