To start off the day we had to move over to a different hotel because the one we were in didn't have beds for us. Once we were moved over w walked back to the other hostel to pick up a free city walking tour.
One of my favorite things about walking tours is that I get to see a lot in a short amount of time, while getting information about it. It makes it easy to decide what to go back and pay admission for. I also love the guides. They have great personalities.
This particular guide, Igor was his name, shared tons with us. And in a funny way. That's always nice.
One of the first things we told us about was the "devastating fire of 1728" that blazed for 3 days straight and left 1 in 5 people homeless. He said that it started because a little boy tipped a candle in his apartment and being that homes were made of wood it continued to spread. The firemen were apparently drunk and therefore quite useless so that didn't help the situation either. The people's best chance was the water from the moat, but to get to this moat you had to go through a gate that was locked unless the king specifically said it was ok to open it. And guess what?! The king went to sleep early!
A few other fun facts I picked up along the way now.
-The city was founded by Bishop Absalon, a warrior bishop who fought pirates..... (And had 26 kids.) Sounds like a questionable man to me..
-Copenhagen has the longest shopping street in Europe. Chad and I were here frequently during our stay.
-The 2 oldest theme parks in the world are found in Copenhagen! How cool is that??? Apparently one of them (Tivoli, the younger of the 2) can even boast being the inspiration for Walt Disney when he created Disneyland!! Chad and I didn't go into into Tivoli but it looked good from the gate!
-The word "Lego" (a Danish brand, an obviously we all know, a great toy) means "Play well"
-Copenhagen can also boast having the biggest shipping company in the world and also one of the top 4 brewing company's (makers of Carlsberg beer). For anyone interested, the other 3 are the company's behind Budweiser and Heineken and a South African company.
-Think about the place you live. Does your town/country/city have a "rival"? Denmark's is Sweden! They have a long history of war.
-Denmark has about 5 million people and 25 million pigs. Can you say hotdogs!?! Yum.
He told us plenty about the way things used to be too. In the "old square" you could watch public executions and also public humiliation. How were people humiliated, you ask? They were forced to walk around with barrels on their heads...
Chad and I were going to visit the old royal palace on our own, but we ran out of time. Fortunately Igor had some thing to tell us about it, and about the Monarchy in general. The palace we wanted to see burned down. Twice. From the same cause, overheated pipe. Not smart.
Also, the Danish royal family is the oldest with unbroken lineage. There have been 20 kings and 2 queens. The kings name ha alternated between Christian and Fredrick and both queens have been Margaret. Margaret II, the current queen of Denmark is well loved and very well educated. 4 degrees from 4 different colleges, she speaks 7 languages AND she personally translated Lord of the Rings into Danish. And illustrated it!! They say she has 1 vice, smoking. "Like a chimney" and therefore she has an extra chimney on her palace.
Ok, ok. That's probably a coincidence. But she really does have an extra chimney more that the other palaces.
To be continued...
Besides the walking tour, it was New Year's Eve! Chad and I celebrated with dinner and drinks at the pub, and watching the craziest fireworks show I've ever seen. In the central square we joined thousands of other people, shoulder to shoulder, sandwiched together from every direction and even blocking the surrounding roads. The fireworks, which had already been going off all day everyday since we arrived 3 days ago, came to a huge peak. You could turn any direction and see them going off, you also might be unlucky enough to turn around and see someone lighting one right behind you. Instead of a planned light show from a certain area like I'm used to at home, they come from everywhere because people have their own. Scary... But exciting anyway.
Happy new year!!!
xoxo
Dec 31, 2012
0 comments:
Post a Comment