Friday ended up being a fairly good day: I saw a lot of cool things, took a long walk, and bought my train ticket to Sweden.
I glanced at the Copenhagen Post, the English language newspaper for Denmark and noticed among its entertainment listings the existence of the Danish War Resistance Museum – and I decided that would be my destination. However, before I could go there, I had to find out where it was, and that was when I discovered it was part of Denmark’s National Museums—and so I decided to go to the Nationalmuseet first, and then head over to the War Resistance Museum to close out my Danish Culture.
So, yes, I did only two cultural things in Køpenhaven—and, stunningly, both museums were free—although I spent an obscene amount of money at the Museum’s restaurant for three small (and excessively hot) fish-cakes, a small serving of odd potato salad, and some mustard pickles.
Musical Instruments - I forget the name.
I’m probably the worst kind of guest because I went to the information desk and said, “What must I see,” and the man behind the desk then had to guess what I might be interested in—ultimately he gave me a summary of most of the museum, and I set off with a focus on Danish Prehistory. I sped through the floor because I wanted to see more than just this one museum and I only had one day—but the Danish Prehistory exhibition, which covers 13000 BC through 1050 AD is fantastic.
I didn’t realize it until later, but it’s clear to me now that the Danish Prehistory exhibition has been recently renovated and it jumped to the top of my list of exceptionally well done museum displays—there were some fantastic panels that painted broad brushstrokes of history, while, if you were so inclined, you could delve deeper into the topic with artifacts and longer explanations of what you were looking at.
The history is complete, and because of the way humans have treated death, there were a number of rooms devoted to burial and the lessons that have been learned from digging up the deceased. But there were also displays of a multitude of other treasures—all worthwhile.
But because I wanted to see more than just Danish prehistory, I headed upstairs to the Danish Middle Ages and Renaissance. Here, I realized, that the museum was a work in renovation process—and that this piece of Danish history had not yet been redone—it was still stuck in that old museum style where artifacts are on display with small labels next to them, and the broad brushstrokes are missing. Regardless, I found this piece of Danish history to be far less interesting: it’s mostly art representing Christianity – a subject which is interesting for to me for about 10 minutes before I figure out that there are only so many ways to represent the cross and that Christian-centric art is about as dull as Christianity itself.
The final segment of Danish history is the “Stories of Denmark” part, which covers 1660 through 2000. The display is segmented into pieces of Danish life over the eras and is nicely done, but not as nice as the Danish Prehistory exhibit. My favorite display in the segment was the nod to Christiania—it was a pot-stand, complete with goods on display – plus a small sign informing us, “What you see in the stall is of course not real hash.”
Waterbus 902
There were some other nice exhibits in the museum, but I was getting tired of being in the museum and I decided to head out – and off to the Danish Resistance Museum. To get there I took a waterbus (or ferry, if you will) – number 902 to its last stop. The weather was spectacular and the ride enjoyable.
The Danish Resistance Museum was, well… using the word enjoyable seems wrong. It was well done, informative, and educational. I didn’t know much about Denmark during World War II, but thanks to the museum, I am far better informed than I was before.
Rather than dwell on the subject – because I could – all I will say is that this was one of those moments where I get really angry at people in history.
After finishing the museum, I wandered through a park (yes, I know, I could have gone to the obvious nearby attraction, but I was tired) and ended my time in the park with a close encounter with a large bird – I don’t know the variety, but it and I eyed each other for about five minutes.
Can anybody tell me what bird this is?
Sounds like a great trip so far. I think the bird is a Graureiher / grey heron, the counterpart to the great blue heron in N. America. We see them along the river in Erfurt. Here’s one in a similar pose:http://www.redbubble.com/people/dutchlumix/art/3660691-the-great-grey-heron-2 Love the beard.
I was going to say, it looks an awful lot like a heron.
We have grey herons in the little lake in the park near our place, Adam. They stand quite still hoping to snatch a fish.
Lucky Adam! Copenhagen is beautiful. I visited the Danish War Resistance Museum many years ago, and I found it to be an extremely moving and inspiring experience.