Copenhagen in the snow

We woke up to a chilly draught through the window and snow falling all over Copenhagen. We shivered on the metro platform above ground at our hotel stop, Fermøren, struggling to make sense of the ticket machine, and when we came up from the underground station at Kongen Nytor there was ice on the steps and heaps of white on people's bikes, parked everywhere along the edges of the streets (nobody locks them). The canals looked cold and grey and one of the boats in them had sunk beyond redemption, but the inner city streets enticed us, decorated with many Christmas lights, and most of them pedestrian zones.

Our first and most important mission was to buy Chris something warmer to wear than the thin pullover he'd found inadequate for the past few days, so we spent a while in a department store, the Magasin du Nord, and found him a wine red padded jacket without sleeves to go under his outer jacket, a sort of padded quilt for the torso, which made all the difference. A girl speaking perfect English served us. He cheered up after that and went and stood beside the Father Christmas  made entirely out of Lego pieces in the Lego shop. They were about the same size.

We had lunch at the Café Katz, then followed the nearest canal down to the main waterway, passing a palace (Christiansborg, home of the Danish parliament), some colourful houses and a light ship. The next bridge led to the wide Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard down which we walked to reach the Glyptoteket by the Tivoli Gardens, site of a fun fair. We decided to visit the Glyptoteket; it was warm in there, with an indoor tropical garden and many sculptures from ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and ancient Rome. The visit merits a blogpost to itself, which I'll publish later. To our surprise, entry to the museum was free on Sundays, a stroke of luck. From there we walked back to the other side of the city centre where we found another wonderful place, the Runde Tårn. We paid to enter this, but it was well worthwhile, a unique building with an inner ramp in place of the expected spiral stairs. This way to the top of the tower turns on itself seven times and offers a magnificent view of the city from the top as well as exhibition rooms on the way up or down. One of the rooms held a fascinating display of wickerwork art.

The night was falling and the streets looked magical, both from above, across the roofs, and at ground level.