Copenhagen

Last weekend my friends David and Lindsey invited me up to the little converted barn they’re renting on a farmer’s property near Ringsted, about forty minutes outside Copenhagen. The farmer actually cultures willows into fantastic yard sculptures, and the property is beautiful. It backs onto a beechwood that contains a Viking tumulus–an old one, as it includes standing stones. By law nothing can be done to the landscape 200m in any direction. There’s also a pond with a lonely feral domestic Muscovy duck who has tried at various times to move into the neighbor’s chicken coops for company; poor guy. But on that lovely spring day, he seemed pretty happy in the pond with the other ducks and the lilypads.

On Friday night we stayed somewhat local with a walk on the beach and a snack and beer at To Øl City in Svinninge, followed by teaching Lindsey how to play poker for guitar picks. Saturday we brunched at the farm and walked in the woods (see above). But, high-maintenance guest that I am 😉 I insisted on at least one beer on a canal in Copenhagen, since the last time I was there it was January and there was no chance of being outside anywhere. So, in advance of our dinner with some other friends in the city, we trekked in a bit early for a nice stroll through Christianshavn and a Herslev Bryghus IPA from Aamanns Replik while sitting on the canal outside the Playhouse theater. Dinner was oregano-and-anchovy pizzas certified delicious by our Italian friends at Surt near the Carlsberg Elephant Tower.

Sunday we took a ride into the adorable and utterly unpronounceable town of Køge (just try clearing your throat–close enough). After some yummy Danishes (yep), we decided on a whim to pop into the 14th century Sct. Nicolai church (remodeled until the 17th century and then preserved at that point). It is jaw-dropping, well worth a visit, if for no other reason than the 120-odd rich people buried in the floor with elaborately lecture-y tombstones over them and the paintings of the 9 muses and 12 apostles with King David and Orpheus stuck on the end to even things out. The baptismal font is of black marble and porphyry and looks like you’re sacrificing your baby, not blessing it. When we walked in, I swear the organist was practicing Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D Minor, and facing us was what looked very much like an actual skull perched atop the ornate, gilded black frame of a stern-looking family portrait of dourly-clad 17th-century Danish people. Lindsey and I looked at each other with big eyes. The whole vibe of the church seemed to be “Keep in mind you’re likely to die any minute of the plague, and are you sure you’re saved?” There were big black iron lockboxes with even bigger padlocks and little coin slots in case you weren’t sure. I was so scared I didn’t even get any pictures, so you’ll just have to check it out online–sorry about that. (I got very few pictures in general this weekend; I think I was having too much fun to remember.)

After that, we needed a unicorn chaser, so we browsed a couple of “super-hygge” Danish homeware boutiques housed in quaint half-timbered townhouses and composed of 30% chocolate, 30% sheepskins, 30% candles, and 10% adorable stuffed mice in dollhouses that come furnished with miniature blenders and cheese wheels. For lunch we drove on to the cheerful harbor at Mosede with an excellent fish restaurant (Det Ny Røgeri) where we got fish-n-chips and a lovely smoked mackerel, which we ate sitting on the dock watching the boats and the gulls. And then it was time to head to the train station for the return jaunt to Berlin. All in all a Very Danish Weekend.