Of cycles and carnivals
Monday, June 04, 2007
When I imagined Copenhagen, I imagined it to be a fun place, warm and sunny since it was on the coast. I visited it this weekend, and found out that for once, I was right.
Copenhagen in itself is a very beautiful city. One can almost imagine how Hans Christian Andersen was inspired to write such beautiful fairytales, The city in itself is out of the fairytales, with the sea on one side and the various lakes and the beautiful architecture on the other. The statue of the little mermaid is small as compared to what I thought it would be, but surely worth seeing for anyone who has read and loved the story as a child.
I spent the weekend roaming around Copenhagen and seeing most of what was famous. My favourite of course was the Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s old harbor where you can almost sense the old world charm. I liked it more since there was more of a festival going on there due to the soccer match between Sweden and Denmark. There were a lot of Swedes in Copenhagen on the weekend for the match, and there was quite a bit of friendly and sometimes not so friendly banter between the Swedes and the Danish fans. Sweden won with quite a bit of drama (one of the Danish fan’s hit the referee resulting in the match being suspended, and Sweden winning). The scenes after that quite reminded me of the cricket matches in India. It was a pleasant surprise to see emotion that strong from the usually reserved guys…
I also liked Tivoli a lot too, though I for the life of me cannot understand why people pay money to be on risky and completely crazy joy rides. But the whole concept of amusement parks in the 19th century left me wonder struck. It’s a little cramped, but I am guessing that since it was built long back, no one really imagined it to be as crowded coupled with the fact that’s its in the center of the city, which leaves the option of expansion out of question. It is however, really pretty and like a continuous carnival. For me , what set it apart from other amusement parks, was a sense of character that it had.
Apart from the beauty of the place, there were a few things that caught my attention. The first thing that struck me when I reached Copenhagen, was how cycles were a very normal method of commuting for people. The most amusing sight I saw was a person on the railway station, waiting for a train along with his cycle (couldn’t get a snap of that one though). I then found out that they renovated the central station at Copenhagen and made a two-storey parking place just for cycles! I tried to get a snap of some people taking their babies in the prams on cycles, didn’t manage to do that, but I did see quite a few of them. – Eco friendly and an extremely healthy way of living, You bet!
The one another thing I noticed in Copenhagen, which was different from the rest of Scandinavia was their carnival culture. The atmosphere at the city square was almost like that of a carnival with music, songs and a whole lot of people just having a really good time. The city seemed much more relaxed and less reserved as compared to the other places I have been in Scandinavia; I guess it’s the coast that’s playing its part there.
Well I surely had a great weekend, marred by the fact that my luggage along with my laptop are stuck somewhere in the middle of Copenhagen and Skelleftea (had to check in my lappy, due to the EU rules of not carrying a lot of liquids as cabin baggage and my aversion to carrying more than one bag). I need to mention this one last bit though – the conveyor belt at the airport wasn’t working and we had to go behind the airport to deposit our luggage in, along with heap of bags, almost making it certain that the bags would never reach Stockholm on the right flight. Now this has never happened to me in India, but am sure if it did, everyone including myself would crib about it being a third world country , nothing ever works here etc etc… Here no one so much so as murmured and people didn’t even complain when as predicted the bags didn’t reach Stockholm. To top it, the airport authorities took in our baggage, without any screening or anything. Am just wondering, with such amazing security, why the need to fuss about liquids!!
Copenhagen in itself is a very beautiful city. One can almost imagine how Hans Christian Andersen was inspired to write such beautiful fairytales, The city in itself is out of the fairytales, with the sea on one side and the various lakes and the beautiful architecture on the other. The statue of the little mermaid is small as compared to what I thought it would be, but surely worth seeing for anyone who has read and loved the story as a child.
I spent the weekend roaming around Copenhagen and seeing most of what was famous. My favourite of course was the Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s old harbor where you can almost sense the old world charm. I liked it more since there was more of a festival going on there due to the soccer match between Sweden and Denmark. There were a lot of Swedes in Copenhagen on the weekend for the match, and there was quite a bit of friendly and sometimes not so friendly banter between the Swedes and the Danish fans. Sweden won with quite a bit of drama (one of the Danish fan’s hit the referee resulting in the match being suspended, and Sweden winning). The scenes after that quite reminded me of the cricket matches in India. It was a pleasant surprise to see emotion that strong from the usually reserved guys…
I also liked Tivoli a lot too, though I for the life of me cannot understand why people pay money to be on risky and completely crazy joy rides. But the whole concept of amusement parks in the 19th century left me wonder struck. It’s a little cramped, but I am guessing that since it was built long back, no one really imagined it to be as crowded coupled with the fact that’s its in the center of the city, which leaves the option of expansion out of question. It is however, really pretty and like a continuous carnival. For me , what set it apart from other amusement parks, was a sense of character that it had.
Apart from the beauty of the place, there were a few things that caught my attention. The first thing that struck me when I reached Copenhagen, was how cycles were a very normal method of commuting for people. The most amusing sight I saw was a person on the railway station, waiting for a train along with his cycle (couldn’t get a snap of that one though). I then found out that they renovated the central station at Copenhagen and made a two-storey parking place just for cycles! I tried to get a snap of some people taking their babies in the prams on cycles, didn’t manage to do that, but I did see quite a few of them. – Eco friendly and an extremely healthy way of living, You bet!
The one another thing I noticed in Copenhagen, which was different from the rest of Scandinavia was their carnival culture. The atmosphere at the city square was almost like that of a carnival with music, songs and a whole lot of people just having a really good time. The city seemed much more relaxed and less reserved as compared to the other places I have been in Scandinavia; I guess it’s the coast that’s playing its part there.
Well I surely had a great weekend, marred by the fact that my luggage along with my laptop are stuck somewhere in the middle of Copenhagen and Skelleftea (had to check in my lappy, due to the EU rules of not carrying a lot of liquids as cabin baggage and my aversion to carrying more than one bag). I need to mention this one last bit though – the conveyor belt at the airport wasn’t working and we had to go behind the airport to deposit our luggage in, along with heap of bags, almost making it certain that the bags would never reach Stockholm on the right flight. Now this has never happened to me in India, but am sure if it did, everyone including myself would crib about it being a third world country , nothing ever works here etc etc… Here no one so much so as murmured and people didn’t even complain when as predicted the bags didn’t reach Stockholm. To top it, the airport authorities took in our baggage, without any screening or anything. Am just wondering, with such amazing security, why the need to fuss about liquids!!
PS:
Got to know once I got back to Office, that Skelleftea was the warmest city/town in the whole of Europe yesterday! Cannot get over it, since have seen it being -30 degrees in the winter and sometimes colder... Yippee!! looks like the summers are finally here... more about it later
0 comments:
Post a Comment