June 28 – Walking Tour, Christiansborg Palace, Tivoli Gardens and Graduation Celebrations

We have another walking tour today; this one was rescheduled from the tour mix up last Tuesday.  

We hit a number of new sights.    The first stop was the old Royal Danish Theater.

An addition to the old Royal Danish Theater was built over one of the streets and on the underside of it were some magnificent mosaics.  There were over 3 million Venetian mosaic tiles…a lot of them gold.  We would never have found this on our own.

We then headed over to Rosenborg Castle (a repeat for us).  The trip was really just to point it out and to give a bit of information about it and the parklands surrounding the castle. 

On the way back into the old town we ducked into a couple of hidden courtyards that we also would have never found on our own. 

We also hit a couple of plazas that we hadn't been to yet...with interesting fountains.

The last stop on the tour was a guided tour of Christiansborg Castle.  It is the home of the Danish parliament, the Supreme Court and other administrative offices.  And it is also contains the Royal Reception Rooms and the Throne Room.  

One of the tidbits we learned is that ever since the early 1500’s every single Danish king was named either Frederick or Christian.  They have had nine Fredericks and ten Christians.  They have had two queens, both named Margrethe (the first one reigned in the 1300’s), the second one sits on the throne today.  

The tour included most of the Royal Reception Rooms and other rooms on the main floor.

The Queen’s Library contained about one tenth of the total collection.  The collection started in the 1700’s under Frederick V.  This is part of the Royal Private Library that is separate from the National Library.

The Great Hall contains 11 tapestries that were commissioned for Queen Margrethe’s 50^th Birthday in 1990 (but they took 10 years to weave so she didn’t get them until her 60^th). 

The decor included very ornate ceilings,

a large set of chairs, each with a different bird or butterfly or such painted on the back.

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More Christiansborg Palace
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After thoroughly enjoying the reception rooms we finished the tour of the palace and adjourned to a nearby plaza for lunch.  We decided we had had enough walking for a while and headed back to the hotel, hoping for a slightly cooler room.

At dinner time we decided to walk back to Tivoli Gardens where we had dinner just outside the garden gates.  

We then wandered around the gardens for about an hour and had some ice cream for dessert.  Tivoli is the second oldest such amusement park in Europe (after another one also in Denmark). 

It was mostly restaurants, amusement rides, and entertainment venues.  It was quite crowded as it is a Friday night and everyone was out enjoying the lush gardens and the rides.

One special treat was that the young people have just finished classes and the graduating high school classes were out in force celebrating.  They all wore small, white sailor type hats so you could identify them immediately.  In the evening large groups of them were traveling around town on the back of open buses and trucks, celebrating loudly and waving to everyone. 

We also saw a group of tourists (likely) heading through town on a cycling bar. The people on the outside pedal, the bartender is in the middle and there is a designated driver.

It is particularly fun and special to get to see and experience these unique, local celebrations.