Carrying straight on from the first part of our Copenhagen walking tour, and with the rain easing off a little now, we next reached Nyhavn. If you’re looking online for photos of Copenhagen then after The Little Mermaid it’s very likely going to be pictures of Nyhavn that you’ll next see the most, with its iconic canals lined with colourful seventeenth and eighteenth century townhouses. Like most old waterfront areas, it’s a place that’s had a seedy, lawless reputation in the past, but it can also claim to have been the home of Hans Christian Andersen for nearly two decades, and there will be more of him further down this article.
Copenhagen is awash with some great examples of architecture, and Danmarks Nationalbank designed by Arne Jacobsen was one such piece that caught my eye more than the rest of our tour group or guide who were all far more interested in the statue beside which we next gathered. If you do a search for Arne Jacobsen chairs using your preferred search system of choice then you’ll realise that you’ll have seen his modernist designs already, I’m sure.
But back to that statue, now. Niels Juel was a Danish admiral and something of a naval hero to the Danes following successful defences of Copenhagen and attacks on Sweden. He was responsible for advances in the reputation of the Danish Navy, and died at the age of 68 as chief of the admiralty. He and his wife were buried in the church below the photos of his statue here, but we headed swiftly past that to the next site of interest.
Just up the road was the seat of the Danish Parliament and home to its Supreme Court, Christiansborg Palace. A palace or castle has stood in this position in Copenhagen since the twelfth century with the first being attributed to Bishop Absalon in 1167. From 1417 ownership of whichever building was on this site transferred – not willingly, mind – from the church to the royal family. The 1730s saw the construction of the first Christiansborg Palace. But there was a fire near the end of the century. The second Christiansborg Palace was built and completed in the early 1800s. But there was another fire near the end of the century. Sticking two fingers up to fate, a third Christiansborg Palace was constructed, and that’s the majority of what still stands today. Unless there’s been a fire since I wrote this.
King Frederik VII was the only king to live in the second Christiansborg Palace and it’s his statue that stands out in front of the present-day building.
Moving on from the palace, we headed in the direction of The King’s New Square, on the way passing by a statue of another former resident of the Christiansborg Palace spot, the first to live there, Bishop Absalon, who managed to have his fingers in all the pies of the church, politics, and the military.
The King’s New Square, or Kongens Nytov, is the largest public square in Copenhagen, and dates from 1670 in the reign of Christian V, of whom there is a statue in the centre. The Danes do like a statue of a person on a horse. A number of important buildings face onto the square, but easily the most attractive and impressive architecturally was the Royal Danish Theatre, constructed in 1874.
Odd Fellows Mansion was the next destination on this walking tour of Copenhagen, but not just to stand outside and admire the mid-eighteenth century Rococo design. A bonus of our walking tour was actually getting to eat a Danish pastry in Denmark, and with this being a tour organised for people on a cruise ship it also provided a good spot to use the toilets. A nice enough building inside, but nothing spectacular if I’m being honest, and I’m always being honest.
We would have just one more sight to see in Copenhagen on this organised walk and that would be on the way back to meet the bus that would (or could) take us back to the ship. We headed through the lovely green space of the oldest park in the city, the King’s Garden. It’s alternatively known as the Rosenborg Castle Gardens and the reason for that will become clear, but first a revisit to the Danish fixation with statues and that promised mention of Hans Christian Andersen once more. The bronze work of art dates from 1880.
Another statue that caught our eye was that of Little Gunver by the nineteenth century sculptor Theobald Stein. Little Gunver relates to a song about a young girl drawn to the bottom of the sea by a deceitful merman. How lovely.
Rosenborg Castle was the impossible-to-miss landmark that sat at the far end of the gardens on our way through the parkland, and is an early seventeenth century Dutch Renaissance style building commissioned by Christian IV, one of many of his architectural projects in and around Copenhagen. It’s easy to see how similar it is to Frederiksborg Castle that we’d visited on our previous cruise to Denmark back in 2017.
And with that our walking tour of Copenhagen came to an end. Sort of. Well, not quite. We could have got on the bus that was waiting to take our tour group back to Sky Princess but our guide mentioned to us that a paid-for shuttle bus service was running between the ship and the city and gave us directions from where to pick it up. We’d known about this bus as it had been mentioned on the ship – “There will be a paid shuttle service and you can buy tickets on board” it had said in the daily programme of events – and we knew that we had several hours before the ship would leave. We realised that we’d have the chance to drop into a bar and grab some local beers before heading back. What could be nicer? What could possibly go wrong?
You’ll have to read the rather unplanned part three of the Copenhagen walking tour to find out.