Friday morning and we are slightly confused. We handed back our bicycles yesterday evening, our bike clothes are scrunched in our bags, and we are about to spend the next two days walking!
Our first destination was to climb the tower of St Savior's Church. To get there we walked beside the large canal we needed to cross to get to Christianshavn. Wide public walkways jut out over the water curving high and low. At one point there is a wide wooden slide open at the top without railings. Further down the canal we crossed a bridge and passed picturesque historic buildings sitting along a narrower canal.
We arrived outside the church five minutes before its 9:30 opening. We knew we could not get to see the interior of the church itself which is not open until later in the day, but the thing that makes this tower different from the zillion other church towers we have climbed is that the topmost part of it's spiral staircase is on the outside of the spire. Once outside, the stair treads are made of copper sheet, and as we climb higher they get increasingly narrower until the very last one just below the giant golden ball perched on top of the spire was only large enough for a single shoe. On the way down, we stopped to inspect the campanile mechanism which controls the ringing of its 48 bells.
Afterwards we wandered a few ancient backstreets on our way to the Radhus / Town Hall to see Jens Olsen's World Clock. What's so special about this clock? Well, it tells the time. But it tells the time anywhere in the world, and gives the day, date and year. Still nothing special? Well it also copes with seasonal adjustments, leap years, adjustments for those phantom seconds that need to be added every few years, plus planetary movements, plus multiple other functions that would be too difficult to describe in this blog (because we don't understand them!), and it's even more impressive because it is entirely mechanical. The several interconnected mechanisms are wonders of engineering in shiny brass and stainless steel with intricately engraved dials, all the result of Olsen's lifelong passion for mathematical calculation towards this one aim that he did not even live to see built.
Lunch along the extremely bustling but picturesque area of Nyhavn was next. This area is a very crowded mass of restaurants with outside seating along the eastern side of what was historically a port area for sailors which provided them with bars, women and whatever else they needed. The bars are now expensive restaurants, the women are apparently now to be found elsewhere, and the waterside is lined with examples of old boats that were brought in at one time for a historic exhibition, but were subsequently unable to leave when the port entry waterway gates seized shut.
Mid-afternoon and off we went to join a 'free' three-hour walking tour, led by a Canadian import called Ben. We have done these sorts of tours elsewhere, where the deal is if you enjoyed it you pay at the end what you think it was worth. It was worth a lot. We visited a majority of the major intercity sites, learned much of the history, and had time for a snack. The culmination of the walk was timed to view the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Palace.
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