Leaving the train station to begin the enjoyable part of my day, I found that even after a night of sleep, the streets near the station remained confusingly or not at all marked.  I finally determined where I was when I noticed the skeleton frames of amusement park rides towering around a large brick building—Tivoli, the amusement park for which Copenhagen is known.  I peeked at it a bit through a gate—the horrifyingly tall rides look a bit like construction equipment until you see the cage of people being hurled around, all of it old, giving off a steampunk air of venerability, unlike Six Flags, which gleams new paint and advanced technology.  I didn’t really have any interest in the place—possibly an active disinterest—but the notes I’d taken from Rick Steves led me to believe that Rodin’s Thinking Man resided in a garden there, and after having endured impressionist after impressionist at the Musée d'Orsay several years ago hoping he would be there, I certainly didn’t want to miss him. 

A shot of Tivoli through its fence

Passing Tivoli, I came across a gate into a garden by a large and impressive building.  The garden looked free, so in I went.  Immediately I was taken with a copper goblin statue, appearing to chase something from his pedestal, hand outstretched to grasp his quarry.  He was delightfully demonic.  His pedestal sat on a lawn surrounded by a wide border of flowers growing together pell-mell, rich pink foxglove prominent among them.  Naturally, I went camera-mad. 

Trold der Lugter Kristenblod
 Niels Hansen-Jacobsen

 





Moving around the goblin to photograph him from every possible angle, I noticed a statue in the middle of the garden.  A huge, hunched, seated figure, green oxidized bronze like the goblin.  I went nearer, excited.  There he was, the Thinker, by Auguste Rodin, outside of the amusement park after all (I must take Rick Steves notes more carefully!) and free in the middle of a public garden.  He, too, was surrounded by foxglove, his pedestal placed before the pillared gable at the center of the impressive building attached to the garden.  No disappointment was he, either, as compared to reproductions and photographs I’d seen—massive, he towered over me, an impressive presence above the wildflowers.

The Thinker, Copenhagen
Auguste Rodin

Now, of course, this is not quite the original Thinker.  The statue with that honor is in the Rodin Museum in Paris, but, as any bronze version was cast based on a plaster figure which Rodin made, it could be argued that none of the bronze versions are “original” in the way that the painting of the Mona Lisa or the Last Supper are—I’m quite happy to consider Copenhagen’s Thinker as original as any other version I might have seen. 

The garden was comfortable and pleasant, with benches and several more less-arresting statues, so I stayed awhile, watching tourist families and locals with babies in strollers come through.  I found a toy dinosaur lying on his side on one of the low hedges bordering the flower plantings—a souvenir I did not take with me, hoping that the original owner, disconsolate without their T. rex, might return for it.  

T. rex on a hedge

Foxglove behind the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Leaving the garden eventually, I wandered around the front of the building (I rarely manage to come at anything from the right direction), examining and photographing statues along the way.  It turned out to be the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, an art museum which had made it into my Rick Steves notes without a ticket price.  I decided to save it until I knew more about the cost, and headed on my way towards the Rådhuspladsen, which was free.

Walking along the boulevard towards the Rådhus, I found double wooden doors leading into a courtyard containing the Rådhusets Gårdhaveanlæg, the Town Hall’s garden.  Some sort of special roses—pink, and past their prime, resembling wads of expensive tissue paper—grew in a hedge around a high fountain sprayed by a statue of a bear, sitting upright, mouth wide open as though waiting for a fish to jump in. 

Courtyard of the Rådhus

I spent so much time in the courtyard that by the time I left it to see the Rådhus itself, it was closing.  I consoled myself by watching a child climb on the odd bronze gargoyles spaced in a semicircle before the front doors and by visiting the famous larger-than-life statue of Hans Christian Andersen around the corner, his knees rubbed shiny by visitors climbing up to sit on his lap. 

The front of the Rådhus 

H. C. Andersen
Henry Luckow-Nielson

The attraction of the H.C. Andersen statue faded after he was engulfed in a swarm of other tourists.  I left the square, heading towards a nearby church I had listed in my notes.  Along the way, I passed a shop with a rather incongruous window—“Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi” emblazoned in white letters over an elaborate Pippi Longstocking playset, complete with horse.  While Pippi is certainly surreal, and might at a stretch be fantasy, I have trouble casting her as horror or sci-fi.  Intrigued, I went inside.  It was a costume and gaming shop, with a startling life-size statue of Batman at the foot of a staircase decorated with giant furry spiders clinging to the rail.  I looked around awhile, amused, but the Pippi incongruity was never clarified. 

When I left, I managed to meander my way through the maze of dubiously-marked small streets to my original goal, the church Sankt Peders.  This late, the building itself was closed, but the yard around it, dotted with graves and statuary, was peaceful.  The church’s motif seemed to involve roosters—they were depicted in several places.  I spent some time resting on benches and gazing at the huge old trees that grew there, before moving on. 

Grave in the wall around Sankt Peders

A fellow holding a rooster

I no longer had a particular destination in mind, but, wandering through increasingly busy streets, I came upon the Rundetårn, a huge astronomy tower now open to the public for climbing.  I gleefully paid my 20kroner, dividing that to dollars in my head and deciding it wasn’t as expensive as it sounded, and headed up the ramp that wrapped around the hollow core of the tower all the way to the top, easing the trip heavy astronomical equipment had to make to get to the observation platform. 

The ramp floor was brick, the walls and ceiling a white tunnel arching overhead, interrupted at intervals by barred windows looking down on the ever-further-below city.  Partway up there was a small museum with cases full of Tycho Brahe’s possessions and instruments used in the tower.  Further up yet, a giant mouse-hole-like opening showed the hollow core of the tower, Denmark’s navigational point zero, now covered over at that level with a plexi-glass disk suspended around a metal pole.  Brave visitors could crawl through the hole and stand on that clear platform, twenty-five meters above the ground. 

Rundetårn

I waited in a loose line of tourists, reading a harrowing leaflet about a choirboy from the 1880s who had fallen down the tower’s core and been trapped at the bottom, relatively uninjured, for a day before he was discovered.  Having survived the sky boxes at the Sears Tower in Chicago, I thought the platform in a dim shaft wouldn’t be too bad, but when my turn came I found myself so dizzy I could scarcely put a foot on it.  I scrambled back out of the mouse-hole and made my way up the ramp to the observation platform. 

My foot on Denmark's Point Zero

Below, Copenhagen was stunning.  Red and green rooftops, brick buildings of many shapes and sizes, distant windmills by the sea.  I saw hydrangeas growing on roofs, ships in the harbor, clocks on high towers now beneath my feet, construction tarps covering the old buildings Europe seeks to keep alive rather than demolishing to replace.  My first height climbed of the trip; my reward Copenhagen a vast yet tiny model beneath my feet.

 

A satisfactory number of pictures taken, I descended by the ramp I had climbed.  Back at ground level, I found myself a beef sausage from a cart for dinner, which I ate under a huge tree that grew along the side of the Rundetårn.  I wanted to see the city’s botanic garden, which my map showed was near the tower, so I headed that way next, but found that it had closed almost as early as the Rådhus and Sankt Peders.  Instead, I finished my day with a visit to the vast nearby Ørstedsparken, full of classical bronze statues and city wildlife.  I rested there and read some Agatha Christie before finally deciding to make my way back to the hostel and bed. 

Ørstedsparken

 

I found I had wandered far in my sightseeing, and, having failed to learn anything about the city’s public transit that day, had to walk the whole way back.  I passed and played on some unidentified ruins in Jarmers Plad, and examined the footwear of the city’s many cyclists—evidently high heels are good cycling shoes.  Finally back at the hostel and exhausted, it was still a struggle to make myself go inside—though it was after 9:30, it was still as light as day, and there were roses to photograph in the hostel yard.  Finally, I dragged myself inside and slept. 

Jarmers Plad Ruins

High-heeled cyclist, center

Transit Adventures in Copenhagen

The plane touched down in Copenhagen very late.  I remembered Rick Steves raving about Copenhagen’s airport, but, at 10:30 at night going on 24 hours of no sleep, nowhere is rave-worthy.  I made my way out, found an ATM from which I took what seemed an unconscionable sum since the kroner is worth so much less than the dollar, found a ticket machine, and easily bought a train ticket to the city center. 

Finding the right train was another matter.  Peering at my Streetwise Copenhagen map, I found the Danish name for their central station, and eventually located a platform that seemed to advertise it as a destination.  There was no longer reliably comprehensive language around me—I missed the Belgian French, so relatively easy to decipher.  A train pulled up, and some English with it—an LED screen instructing me in no uncertain terms not to get on it (evidently only an English speaker would try, as there appeared to be no equivalent Danish message).  That train emptied out, detached itself in an alarming burst of static electricity from the wire above, then reversed the performance, reattaching and shooting off empty into the night.  I watched it go with exhausted dismay, but eventually, later than promised, another train arrived, and I got on it after asking “Copenhagen?” of an official-looking person.  He confirmed, but a group of Spanish-speaking girls who seemed delightedly certain they were on the wrong train disconcerted me.  They located an English-speaking passenger who confirmed their suspicion but allayed mine—we were headed to the central train station in Copenhagen. 

The ride was quick, and I found myself on a stark platform with no signs in any language telling me where to go.  I followed another passenger up a flight of concrete steps and found myself standing on a sidewalk that ran along an unmarked street.  I wandered to a corner and found the cross-streets also unmarked.  There was a building sort of in the vicinity of the trains, but it had no sign declaring it anything, and no clear entrance, so I didn’t feel confident identifying it as the train station.  I dragged my suitcase as briskly as my exhaustion would allow to another corner, and finally found a street name.  I rapidly located myself on my map and took off down the dark street, keeping my head up and my pace quick to put off anyone who might want to bother a small lost person burdened with a large suitcase.  I came across one of the two streets that led to my hostel, but was sorry to be walking along it after dark—it was poorly lit and lined with clubs, increasing my nervousness.  Following it awhile and heading around a bend, though, I encountered an enormous sign that said “Hostel,” pointing me right to my destination.  I got inside, paid, refused to rent linen or a pillow, and hauled my case up a curving but new-looking staircase.  I found a bathroom and then my dorm, where I settled in in the dark, surrounded by sleepers in bunks.  I made use of the wifi to tell people I was still alive, then suddenly found myself unable to sleep.  It actually took quite awhile to drift off, despite my 24 hours awake. 

I slept late in the morning, til nearly 10.  Blearily, I got out of my bunk (bottom) and dug through my suitcase.  I felt monumentally disgusting, and was so happy to find the shower room easily and to find it large and clean.  I showered, feeling so much more human. 

Dressed, I put some things in my backpack and headed outside, where it was actually cold and grey enough to make me wonder if I should return to the hostel for my rain jacket.  I found a grocery store where I bought a triangle sandwich (my favorite sort of sandwich), a banana, and a roll of temptingly familiar Oreos.  I ate on the steps of a church in a nearby plaza, eyeing pigeons warily.  

Church steps make a good breakfast picnic table.

Fed, I headed back for the train station.  I needed a reservation for my train to Berlin in a few nights. 

Inside the station building (much easier to locate by daylight), I made a circuit, looking at all the shops that filled it, then went into the crowded ticket office and took a number for “international.”  My number was a good twenty people away, so I found a seat on a bench and even an outlet for my phone.  Tired of people-watching when I could understand nothing that was said, I pulled out my nook and continued reading Bill Bryson’s African Diary, a book calculated to make anyone in Europe appreciate almost any sort of accommodations whatsoever, all the while keeping a watch on the screen with the numbers.  Mine got closer and closer.  It had been paused for awhile several numbers from mine, so I looked down to read another page.  Suddenly, it was several numbers past mine.  Frustrated, I got another number.  This added confusion to my frustration—the international numbers were nearly through the 600s on the screen, but my new number was 533.  I went to the help-with-numbers-but-not-tickets podium, where I was told that, in Denmark train stations at any rate, 500 and not 700 follows 600.  I shrugged and sat to wait again, this time on steps, as the bench had filled.  This time, I would pay better attention.

Around 531 the numbers stalled again.  I had my phone unplugged, all ready to rush to the counter, and again, I glanced down, this time only to read a couple of sentences.  540s when I looked back up.  I couldn’t understand it.  Feeling murderous, I took a third number, and elbowed my way to a space behind a bench at the center of the room.  I let myself read, but stopped long before my new number.  Even staring at the screen, I barely scrambled to my designated counter before the screen leaped ahead to higher numbers. 

My reservation on an overnight train to Berlin was horribly expensive.  I should have made it in the US, whatever the shipping cost Rail Europe wanted to charge.  Having the price told me in kroner just made it seem worse—I’m sure I stared at the clerk in disbelief while trying frantically to convert the number he’d just said to me into US dollars.  I didn’t have a choice, though; I bought it and the clerk validated my rail pass.