Windy-ful, wonderful Copenhagen

Today, Monday, dawned cloudy and rainy (the weatherman lied) but we just grabbed our raincoats and headed out anyway.  It was windy much of the day, and dark grey storm clouds raced across the sky along with patches of blue. Today was planned to be a slower, quieter day.  Ken's bulging disc is still giving him walking problems, although he is much improved from a few weeks ago, and my cold has settled in for the usual cough and congestion discomfort.   And we agreed we both pushed ourselves a little too much yesterday.  So today was just going to be a couple of hours up to the Rosenborg Castle.

But first we stopped at the amber museum at the end of the canal.  Quite small, but with a nice collection of amber pieces of varying sizes and colors, also many examples with bugs captured in them and some good information about amber formation and aging, along with some exquisitely carved sailing ships, chess pieces, pipes and other sailing oriented carvings.  There is a lovely little commercial shop underneath the museum, but we decided to wait to purchase anything.

The Rosenborg Castle was only 500 yards away, but we got waylaid by a cute cafe with cappuccino halfway there.  We finally got to the Castle and Gardens just before noon, when everything stops to see the changing of the guards (Queen Margreth is in town) and the crowds are at their largest. After 45 minutes in line, stashing our purses in the mandatory lockers (I suppose so we don't make off with the family silver) we were into the Castle itself.

King Christian was quite the entertaining host.  He built a special chair to trick unsuspecting guests.  Essentially, upon his command a servant would pull a ring at the back of the chair, the chair extended metal arms to trap the guest from getting up, and water would squirt out from the armrest to drench the guest.  And then, when this hilarious fun was over and the guest managed to escape,  the chair made a farting noise.  Sort of an original Whoopee Cushion.

The King also had a mirrored room, purportedly so he could look up the skirts of the ladies, as well as a hidden peephole in the door of his bedroom, to check on who was waiting outside. 

We also saw an amazing assortment of porcelain, glass and fine furnishings, but I think they overdid the whole silver-in-my-purse thing...this lion just isn't going to fit, or the Queen's throne, either.

After the castle itself, we headed down to the basement where they keep the Crown Jewels.

The coronation crown, 7 pounds of gold, plus assorted diamonds, rubies, emeralds and pearls.

Closeup of the diamond and pearl encrusted saddle

Amber and gold set of jewels

Perfectly detailed armies of foot soldiers, cavalry on both horseback and elephants, archers and others.

After the Treasury, we wandered through the garden during one of the off-and-on dry spells, and happened upon this guy with Hans Christan Anderson

It was already 3 pm, and I had planned on only spending a couple of hours touring, and here it was already five hours.  So we had a quick nosh (lunch?) at one of the famous pølse vognes-or in English the hot dog stand.  But these have about 12 different varieties.  We ended up with two "ristets mit everything".  Not exactly sure what "everything" was, but it included stone ground mustard, ketchup, yellow sauce (sorta like a dijonnaise?) pickles and crispy fried onions.  Tasted very good, and still no heartburn!

Shortly after,  we went back to the hotel, where I am currently ensconced, yes in my garret room, listening to a nearby a capella choir practice as I write this.  Lovely, really great.  Beautiful voices.  Ken, Sandy and Tom went across the street to one of the canal side restaurants, but I figured it would be wiser for me to take a hot shower and rest in bed.  Tom will bring me hot tea and some bread for dinner.  Tomorrow we board the ship and depart to Norway.