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Copenhagen, Denmark is just a 30 minute train ride from Malmö, Sweden. So we boarded the Öresund-Link train, that took us over the Öresund( Öre Sound) by 8km bridge, the longest in Europe and an 8 km tunnel. The trains, which are more like subways have a car called “rest car”, where cell phones must be shut off and speech must be kept to a whisper. Lothar and I were busy planning our day until we were reprimanded not to speak by a “weird guy playing with his Rubic cube” . He motioned to a picture on the wall that showed a finger put up to the mouth in a gesture of silence, next to a cell phone. We naturally thought it meant that cell phones were to be put on vibrate. After this guy scolded others in the compartment, we didn’t feel so hurt anymore. As soon as we got off the train in Copenhagen, we noticed that the city had a much more diverse population than the other Scandinavian countries, we had visited. Sweden does have a lot of 1/2 Swedes, since a large number of the population seems to intermarry with foreigners. Norwegians have a very strict immigration policy, where only proven refugees are accepted into the country. Denmark, and Copenhagen in particular has an 11% foreign population, making it culturally, very interesting.

We walked through the city center past the Rådhus, down the Kobmagergade, past the Trinitatiskirke, Rosenborg Slot and then to the Statens Museum for Kunst. If you know English and German, you can most definitely figure out the names of the landmarks afore mentioned. They show their Indo-Germanic roots.
At the Museum for Kunst we were enlightened about Danish, as well as European art culture from the Middle Ages to present day. We saw some works by such famous Danish artist as Jens Juel and PS Kroyer. Some of the Europeans were Lucas Cranach and Emil Nolde of Germany, Peter Paul Rubens of Holland, Edvard Munch of Norway, Pablo Picasso of Spain and Matisse of France. There were 1000 works, all displayed in about 6 rooms in an exhibition called Highlights . It was interesting, but too overwhelming to our senses, to have to concentrate on one particular piece of art, with 4 others flanking it. The last assault on our senses came with the modern paintings. We really wondered how history, in a couple of centuries, would judge them. In the present, we didn’t find them worthy of being called “art”….but then who are we to judge.
After the museum, we needed food to refresh our bodies and minds, so we stopped in yet another main market square, at “Jensens Bofhus”, where we could once again watch the population go by, while enjoying our evening fare with a USD 7 beer. On our way back to the hotel, we picked up a .5 liter of Danish Carlsberg beer at a supermarket for a grand total of 85 cents. Talk about a profit margin for restaurants here!

This entry was posted on Friday, June 17th, 2005 at 11:20 am and is filed under Denmark. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.