A walking tour of Copenhagen:

I didn't go on a walking tour of Copenhagen. This isn't one, either. Rather, it is a brief overview of some interesting areas within the city -- and Copenhagen has a lot of interesting areas.

1) Brumleby is a really neat neighborhood located in Østerbro, made up of several long, yellow buildings arranged in rows. It doesn't sound interesting, and it didn't look it, either, when I was assigned to study and prepare a presentation on it for my architecture class. Lucky for me, however, a visit to the neighborhood itself made me change my mind completely. I'll spare you most of the details, but Brumleby was built in the 1850s as healthier housing for the working class after the cholera epidemic of 1853 (which killed roughly 1/3 of Copenhagen's population at the time). It was occupied for several decades, but by the middle of the 20th century, it had fallen into disrepair. In the 70s, students moved in and squatted the neighborhood, even though it lacked facilities like interior plumbing. Over the next couple of years, there were significant conflicts between the students and the authorities, as some groups wanted to demolish Brumleby and redevelop the valuable inner city land it sits on, while others wanted to renovated and preserve the community. Finally, by the 1990s a decision was made, and the buildings were renovated, restored, and converted into apartments of varying sizes.

Today, Brumleby is an awesome little community that still maintains some of the aspects of its past as a squatters' residence. There are numerous community councils, public gardens, community spaces like a meeting hall, party space, woodshop, and dark room, and neighborhood relationships are very strong. The apartments are small, so a lot of time is spent outside. Cars aren't allowed inside Brumleby, so the entire neighborhood is this great, quiet oasis from the rest of the city. Well-established trees create a beautiful promenade between the buildings, and private patios open onto public gardens. More time is spent outside than in. The best way to appreciate Brumleby's aesthetics is through pictures, and there are quite a few good ones here.


2) While normally I wouldn't voluntarily spend much time in a cemetary, Assistens Kirkegård is actually a really nice spot. Located in Nørrebro, the cemetary is home to nearly every famous dead person in Denmark. Hans Christian Andersen, Søren Kierkegaard, and the three other famous people in Danish history are all buried there. In all seriousness though, it's a nice spot. One would think it would be weird hanging out near gravestones the whole time, but the area is much more park than cemetary. It's pretty secluded, and at least from my first visit, it doesn't seem like it ever gets very crowded. I could easily see myself taking a girl on a romantic stroll there, assuming that she finds dead people as romantic as I do. Not sure that'll ever happen, however, as the one time I went in I almost didn't get back out, as they locked the gates behind me. Apparently I went in right before closing time (6:30?), because a couple minutes later when I returned to the entrance, it had been closed and locked behind me. It took a couple of minutes of wandering, but luckily I found another exit and managed to get out. Otherwise, I probably would have curled up around Kierkegaard's tomb and called it a night.


3) Finally, a touristy spot. Nyhavn is the spot that appears in every picture one will ever see of Copenhagen (you know, the row of brightly colored buildings on the water?), so it's the quintessential touristy area for anyone visiting the city. Anyway, I took a swing down there this weekend, and despite being the biggest tourist photo-op in Copenhagen, it's actually quite nice -- and not tacky at all. There are lots of restaurants in the aforementioned brightly colored buildings, and hundreds of people were outside eating and drinking on the waterfront. On a nice day, a beer and a meal canalside at Nyhavn would be hard to beat.


One word of warning, however: if you decide to partake in an ice cream cone in Denmark (as one typically would on a warm and sunny day), get the small. Not because Danish proportions overwhelm the US's gargantuan serving sizes, but because after more than a few bites, you'll start feeling nauseous. At Nyhavn I got a medium cone, which was at first delicious, but by the time I was halfway done, I was ready to puke. Danish ice cream (soft-serve, anyway), is much thicker and richer than American varieties, so eating it is that much more of an ordeal. It's like if you were forced to eat a tub of vanilla frosting in one sitting -- maybe the first few bites would seem really delicious, but by the end, you'd be ready to empty your stomach contents into the nearest receptacle and switch from birthday cakes to birthday carrot sticks for the rest of your life.