I have one day in London between Copenhagen and flying to America and I am hoping to finish this post before I leave (although I may end up having to work on it on the plane, as much as I hate writing on my iPhone). There is a lot to get done today. At one point I was feeling compelled to finish a painting I have been working on for the past ten days and spent an hour or more on it. But I realized that I was unlikely to finish it and that it doesn’t make sense to try to make any kind of art under arbitrary time pressure. So the painting will sit in the kitchen until we return.

Copenhagen was a lot of fun. Judie barely made it out of the hotel and conference center, except for dinner, and then had to leave a day early (which was supposed to be her sightseeing opportunity). The hotel itself is one of the design landmarks of Copenhagen. It is located a bit outside of the city, but has its own station on the new Metro line, so you can get to downtown in about 15 minutes. A photo of the hotel is below. The rooms all have furniture by Danish designers. There is a bar on the top of one of the towers that we reached via that walkway on the top.

Miscellaneous thoughts: Since I don’t really have the time to write a real travelogue, It is easier to just give you some highlights and impressions:

• The whole design thing is important in Copenhagen. There is an entire museum devoted to Danish design. I went there. It was pretty good. Lots of chairs. And there are many stores selling design items, be it furniture, jewelry, kitchen utensils, pottery or whatever. But the interior of the city is pretty old, with much of the architecture from the 1850-1920 period, I’d guess. Nothing too tall, which give the city a human scale. Not a whole lot of new architecture, except along the waterfront, which has some remarkable new buildings, like their new Opera House and the Library, called the “Black Diamond”, which is said to contain every Danish book every published.
• The weather was unfortunately London-like (grey, slightly rainy and chilly). I don’t know why I was expecting nicer weather. I was traveling North. It was too bad because there is obviously the potential for lots of outdoor conviviality. And of course the gardens weren’t quite blooming and the trees were barely considering their leaves. Perhaps worst of all, the grey days muted the bright palette of the city.
• I went to the re-opening of Tivoli Gardens, an old amusement park in the center of Copenhagen that supposedly inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyland. It is, of course, much smaller, but very pretty, even on a drizzly day. You could imagine what it would be like on a summer day, covered with flowers and jammed with customers, riding the various rides and eating at the many restaurants.
• Copenhagen is very walkable. For one thing, it is essentially flat. And the downtown area isn’t all that big and it is possible to walk from one side to the other in about 30-40 minutes. The Metro system is pretty small, although they are in the midst of adding at least one new line, causing some ugly construction at what would be some of the lovely major squares. The cars are deigned to hold bicycles (although they aren’t allowed during rush hour). There are bike lanes everywhere, which are extensively used. There are just bikes parked everywhere. The Metro stations are surrounded by them.
• I’m kind of sick of royalty and castles, so I skipped those sights. I did go to Amelienborg, which is a spectacular square made up of four palaces. They were supposed to be for rich merchants and other noblemen, but the royals took it over when their castle burned down and liked it so much, that the never moved back. The Queen still lives in one of them and, as a result, there are guards in funny uniforms in the square marching around. There was small and boring museum in one of the palaces, devoted largely to explaining and extolling the royal family, which goes back to the 900s.
• That square is bisected by an avenue. At one end is a huge church. It was started with the idea that it would be made out of Norwegian marble. But that turned out to be too expensive, so construction stopped and it was left as ruins for almost 100 years (and much of the marble was stolen). Eventually, a Copenhagen businessman offered to finish it. My guess is that was a part of plan to surround it with expensive buildings, as the church is the middle of a square of beautiful buildings all clearly built together. The church is called the Marble Church, although there isn’t much marble in it. At the other end of the avenue is a beautiful park along the harbor (or rather what will be beautiful park in a few weeks), with the dramatic Opera House across the water.
• I went on a boat tour the last day, fooled by the sun coming out briefly. But it disappeared as soon as we left and it was windy and occasionally spitting rain. I wanted to be outside so I could see better and take pictures and I almost froze. But it was a nice trip and I got to see the “Little Mermaid” statue and the canals of Christianhavn, which looks like a good place to visit. During the ride, I learned the the ubiquitous Bluetooth was invented by Norwegians and was named after Harald Bluetooth, Danish King in the early days, allegedly because Harald united Scandanavia in the same way that the technology unites different company’s apps and different hardware.

It would be nice to write more because Copenhagen was a nice trip and it looks like an extremely livable city. And I didn’t even get to the food scene and the restaurants we went to. It would also be nice to add some of the photos I took. But the taxi gets here at 7:00 tomorrow morning and I’m not finished packing.