Store Bededag - Great Prayer Day in Copenhagen

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Tomorrow is the fourth Friday after Easter so that means it is Store Bededag or Great Prayer Day in Denmark.

Great Prayer Day fascinates me because it seems to show just how practical Danes are and even when it comes down to organising religious festivals.

By the late 17th century it seems that there was a problem because people were marking different saint days and choosing different saints to celebrate. Not quite a day off work for someone somewhere but in 1686, Christian V rolled together all the days for celebrating minor saints through the Spring into one day off and decreed that, thenceforth, there would be just a single holiday .... Great Prayer Day.

Then, last year, the Danish government down graded it as a public holiday so tomorrow, for the first year since 1686, Danes will not take the day off from work or, rather, not take the day off and still be paid.

The reason? The state has to pay for increased expenditure on defence and, apparently, everyone working through what should otherwise have been a public holiday helps.

With many events through the year in Denmark, there are distinct foods linked to specific celebrations …. fastelavnsboller for Lent or goose for Mortenaften - the feast of Saint Martin in November - or the special beer on the first Friday in November for julebrygsdag or Christmas Brew Day. For Great Prayer Day it's Hveder .... wheat buns flavoured with cardamom.

The logic is impeccable. Because it was a religious festival, bakers could not work on the Friday, so they baked these yeast buns on Thursday so citizens had bread for the holiday.

The buns are light and are baked in trays and dough, formed into small balls, is set out in the tray in lines with regular spaces between. As they rise, they come up against the adjoining dough to form almost-square buns with a domed top. Edges, where they touch the next bun, remain soft while the tops brown in the oven.

Inevitably, these soft, light, rolls, with a delicate hint of cardamom, rarely last until Friday. The normal way is to eat them warm, pulled apart and spread with butter.

By tradition, church bells are rung on Thursday evening to mark the start of the religious holiday on Friday and, in Copenhagen, there is a centuries-old habit for citizens, on Thursday evening, to walk the ramparts - the high banks of the city defences - or families walk around the rampart of Katellet - the fortress at the north end of the inner city - with views from there across the city and across the harbour and the sound.

When I was at school, we had to write reviews or criticisms of books and music and works of art and the one word that was always scrubbed out with red ink, when these efforts were marked, was the word nice. I remembered that this afternoon when I walked across to buy wheat buns and I realised just how "nice" these Danish traditions are. Maybe I'm just getting old in a bad World but these days I'm really happy when anything is nice.

Hveder - wheat buns bought this afternoon from the local baker

 

‘On Copenhagen’s Vold the evening before Great Prayer Day’
painted by Andreas Herman Hunæus in 1862
Statens Museum for Kunst

 

walking on the ramparts of Kastellet

celebrating the 90th anniversary of S-tog

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Journeys today on suburban trains through and around Copenhagen will be free to mark the 90th anniversary of S-tog, the S-train system that serves the city and its suburbs and outer towns.

The first train line in Denmark, from Roskilde to what is now the central station in Copenhagen, opened in 1847 and then, through the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, a network of train tracks were constructed to run around and across the city.

In 1926 a commission was set up to look at electrification of the train service. They presented their report in 1929 and the first sections, with electric trains running from Klampenborg to Hellerup and from from Vanløse to Frederiksberg, opened on 3 April 1934.

S-tog now has 170 kilometres (110 miles) of track and with 87 S-train stations … with 104 electric trains with eight cars and 31 trains with four cars … S-trains and the metro system together carry around half a million passengers a day.

To the north of the city centre there are S-tog lines out to Farum, Hillerød and Klampenborg with lines out to Køge to the south, to Høje Taastrup to the west, and out to Frederikssund to the north west of the city. These lines meet and cross through the central station that is still the main traffic hub with interchanges to regional and international trains but there is also an outer S-tog service that runs in a wide arc across the west and north parts of the city from what is now called København Syd (formerly Ny Ellebjerg) to Hellerup and that crosses and links all the radial lines.

From the start, S-tog trains were promoted as not just a transport system for workers coming into the city in the morning and heading back home in the evening but also as a reliable and cheap way for citizens to get out into the countryside or out to beaches and the coast.

In 1947 this radial system of train lines became the framework for a crucial new planning proposal for Copenhagen that was to control urban development and prevent sprawl. Stations along the lines were to be nodes for commercial development or were to serve new areas of housing. It was called the Finger Plan as on maps - or at least on schematic maps - it looked like a hand spread out with the old centre of the city as the palm and new development along the fingers - each with an S-tog line - and with green spaces between the fingers that were, where possible, protected from development.

S trains today at the station at Østerport

a "dark store" in Copenhagen has to close

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A grocery store on the south side of Holmbladsgade - on the corner of Geislersgade - has been ordered to close by the city council.

It's a large retail space across the ground floor of a relatively new apartment building and it has been open since December 2021.

Although, looking in from the pavement, this appears to be a fairly standard supermarket but there are no tills or check.out counters. This is not a traditional retail space but a Wolt grocery store so the problem for the city council is that the shop is not open to the public and is, to all intents and purposes, a warehouse where groceries, ordered on line through the Wolt App, are taken from the shelves and packed by warehouse staff and then collected and delivered to customers by bike riders.

It does not comply with the local plan for this part of Amager -designated as residential with appropriate retail - and there have also been complaints from nearby residents about noise and specifically about loud mopeds some of the riders use to deliver groceries.

From what I have seen, fast electric trikes used by some of the riders are much more dangerous. Recently, I heard some choice Danish words and even saw a fist raised in Christiania as a delivery driver from Wolt, riding on a wide electric trike with hefty tyres, raced through lanes packed with pedestrians to cross over the foot bridge to Amager at a fair lick and, believe me, it takes a bit to make the laid back residents of Christiania that angry about anything.

In 2023 planners closed an other Wolt Store on Enghavevej after complaints from the local residents committee.

When notified, Wolt appealed the decision by planners to close the Holmbladsgade store and suggested that they could sell hot drinks and baked goods to customers coming in from the street but it appears that that solution has been rejected so, sometime before Easter, this particular dark store will go permanently dark.

At Wolt the delivery riders are called partners - because they are not employed directly by the company - and they claim that they can not dictate what sort of bike or moped their riders use.

The company started in Finland in 2014 but in 2022 the business was sold to the American DoorDash. Wolt came to Copenhagen in 2017 and there are now 10 Wolt stores across Denmark, in main cities, so this type of store with bike deliveries has created a new planning problem.

These stores are defined as "dark" because they are not open to customers although that is a misnomer because this store is open until late - much later than other shops along the street - and it is brightly lit which is, I presume, for the security of the young warehouse workers and the delivery riders coming and going late into the night.

 

Along with groceries, Wolt delivers meals from restaurants that have been ordered on line and the app also has flowers and sex toys so they bring to your door almost everything you could want if you are staying in for an evening.

Before writing this post, I checked out the Wolt App - I don't use delivery services - and spotted immediately a glaring irony. The delivery riders I've seen racing around the city with their distinct pale blue delivery boxes are generally fairly fit - they have to work hard and fast to earn their money - but for customers this is such an easy way to bulk load calories because you only have to walk from the sofa to the front door and back with your delivery of your large hit of calories on demand.

Dark stores have been banned in Amsterdam so presumably problems there have been enough to prompt strong action by planners.

 

Copenhagen Light Festival 2024

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Copenhagen Light Festival opened tonight and continues through until the 25 February.

There are 79 light works that have been set up in streets, squares and parks across the city and seven events that include an opening concert and a family run at night with lights. The works vary enormously in form from laser displays through floodlighting to sculptures in light and many of the installations include sound.

Details of locations and, where relevant, times are set out in the online programme but, In general, lights will be switched on at 5pm.

This year, for the first time, there will be guided walks but, if you want to explore independently, there is an app for the festival that can be downloaded and that includes an interactive map with information about each installation and about the artists.

Copenhagen Light Festival - programme

 

The Wave - Ofelia Plads

Du som er i Himlene - Højbro Plads
Vivid Verve - Jorcks Passage
PiXLEarth - Knasten, Havnegade 14
Bron, Broen, Bridge - Knippelsbro

the season has changed and we are rushing towards Christmas

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Last weekend the clocks changed; Broens Skøjtebane - the ice rink at the Christianshavn end of the Inner Harbour Bridge (top left) - opened on Friday; Christmas markets at Højbro Plads (top right) and on Kongens Nytorv have opened and, on Kongens Nytorv, the main department store of Magasin du Nord and the Hotel Angleterre now have their Christmas lights ….. suddenly we are in the rush down to the end of the year.

Skøjtebane, Strandgade 95, 1401 København K
opened on 3 November 2023 and
remains open through to 25 February 2024

 

UNESCO architecture

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An open-air exhibition of photographs on Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen.

This is one of the events in the city to mark that, in 2023, Copenhagen is the UNESCO World Capital of of Architecture.

These are photographs, with information panels and maps, of World Heritage Sites in Denmark …… Roskilde Cathedral, Kronborg Castle, Stevns Klint, Jelling Monuments, Christiansfeld, the Wadden Sea and the Parforce hunting landscape in North Zealand.

UNESCO ARCHITECTURE
Kongens Nytorv
København K
1 July 2023 - 30 July 2023

design festival June 2023

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In 2023, the annual design festival in Copenhagen - 3daysofdesign - runs through the 7th, 8th and 9th of June.

Exhibitions, launches for new designs, openings, talks and discussions … will be held in studios, design stores, exhibition venues, embassies and courtyards throughout the city.

Every year I try to emphasise just how important it is to plan your route around the city if you want to see as much as possible. This year there are just under 300 design companies, designers, design stores and museums and galleries participating and, just now, when I looked at the programme, there are 549 events listed.

For the first time this year - the tenth year for 3daysofdesign - there will be three official hubs for the festival …….. in the city it is in 25hours Hotel at Pilestræde 65, out on Refshaleøen the hub is Copenhagen Contemporary - Hal 6, Refshalevej 173A and down at Carlsberg Byen the events are centred around Mineralvandsfabrikken, Pasteursvej 20.

Around these hubs are 13 districts, each with a distinct logo, so events and openings are grouped together.

3daysofdesign
hubs & districts
programme

 

a walk along the lane of the outer defences

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On Sunday afternoon I walked up to Refshaløen to see a new exhibition - Yet it Moves! - at Copenhagen Contemporary.

Door to door it’s about 2 miles or just over 3 kilometres.

From my apartment I crossed over the open space of Kløvermarken and at the old outer defences, instead of crossing over Dyssebroen - the bridge to Christiania and the route I would take to get into the city - I headed north along Middyssen and Norddyssen and the line of four redans. This was the outer line of defences that were reinforced in the 19th century to protect an area of water outside the bastions of Christianshavns Vold that protected the part of the harbour where the large war ships of the Danish navy anchored when they were in Copenhagen.

This outer defence is a narrow strip of land with a lane on the city side between the redans. These redans are triangular and have buildings surviving from the military fortifications. They project out so that from each there is not just a view out towards Amager, to see if attacking troops are on the move, but also give the defending soldiers a view each way along the outer face of the bank to give covering fire.

There is a wide stretch of water to the west, to the city side, with views of the bastions of Christianshavns Vold. Even though this is looking towards the centre of the city, about all you see across the water are reed beds and the trees on the banks and bastions with just a few low buildings including the group of green houses and outbuildings of the restaurant Noma.

On the side of the lane away from the city there is a low bank, now covered with trees, but originally this provided cover for troops moving along the inner lane. On that outer side of the outer defence there is now a shallow stream that is all that is left of a wide stretch of marsh and shallow water between the defences and the original shore of Amager.

This is not nature in the raw but dense planting includes mature trees and good growths of shrubs including decorative species like magnolia and lilac. Small gardens have been established by the families living here and the wide stretch of water has extensive reed beds along the shallow water of the shore and it is a haven for water fowl.

Houses along the lane are part of the settlement of Christiania and were built with salvaged and reused materials and well before most people even considered that rampant redevelopment in concrete and steel could possibly be a problem.

I said walk but it was more like a slow saunter taking photographs as and when.
I saw the exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary and then headed back as the light softened. The photos above are shown simply in the sequence I took them.
Every time I do this walk, I appreciate that this is an amazing part of the city because here I am not out on some distant country lane but just a kilometre or so from the centre of Copenhagen.

Platform C - Syddyssen by Fokstrot

Dyssebroen … the bridge from Christiania to the outer bank of the defences
on the far side of the bridge, syddysen is the lane to the right and middyssen is the lane to the left

① Kløvermarken
② Dyssebroen
③ Øens Have
④ Copenhagen Contemporary

early afternoon on a warm Saturday in May

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Today was the warmest day of the year so far.

I did some shopping in Amager and then sauntered across Kløvermarken and through Christianshavn and over the inner harbour bridge to Nyhavn and the square at Kongens Nytorv.

People in the city make use of the streets and squares and open spaces of the city to sit outside at any time of the year but particularly if the weather is good. I took a few photographs and it was only when I downloaded the photos that I realised nearly everything here is about eating and drinking outside but there are also major events, exhibitions and participatory sport outside and through most of the year.

On Holmblådsgade, a main street that cuts east west across Amager, there are now several cafes and bars with outdoor seating but here a side street on the west side of Nathanaels Kirke has been closed to through traffic and the restaurant and bar on the corner can spread it’s tables out across what is a good sun trap. Rather than being a problem, passing traffic and people walking along the pavements is a good distraction and means that there is a good amount of banter and interaction with locals.

The open green space is in that intermediate area between Christianshavn and Holmen and is behind the Hal C sports centre. This was a loud and well-supported rugby tournament for women though the food and drink and barbecues for families and friends there to give support seemed to be as important as the sport.

Crossing over the harbour bridge and looking back down onto the quay at Krøyers Plads, it was clear that again this summer the wood decks here will be the place to pose and see and be seen if you are in your teens or 20s or even your wanna-be-young-again 30s but it certainly helps if you are happy to dive into the water even if it is still numbingly cold.

The restaurant and bar at Charlottenborg - the 17th-century palace of the Danish Royal Academy - is another great sun trap and here, tucked around the corner from the gate from Nyhavn, you are barely aware of the press of tourists just metres away as they jostle for tickets for the harbour boat tours or argue with their kids about what ice creams they want or do or do not deserve.

 

Space10 has a new work and meeting area

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Space10 - the research and design lab of IKEA in Kødbyen - in the Meat Packing District in Copenhagen - has been a place to go for good coffee for sometime but the area just inside the entrance has now been rearranged to encourage more people to use it as a meeting and work area with wifi and a selection of books for inspiration.

Opening times have been extended.

The 100 or so books - in striking canvas cradles - are recent publications on architecture and urban design that have been recommended by the staff but there is also a book exchange where anyone can leave appropriate books or take away donated books.

I would recommend signing up to the Space10 newsletter for information about their programme of exhibitions, lectures and discussions about research work in the lab. It is a sharply-designed site and is now establishing a substantial and stimulating archive that is tracking current thoughts and ground-breaking new research on urban living and design.

SPACE10 - library
SPACE10, Flæsketorvet 10, Københaven
open Monday to Thursday 9.00 to 17.00

 
 

Broens Skøjtebane 2022

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The ice rink at the Christianshavn end of the inner city bridge has just been set up and opened for the coming winter season.

It is incredibly popular. Older kids seem to head here immediately after school but it’s equally popular with families. Everyone arrives on foot or by bike because there is no public transport to this particular part of the inner city …. even the harbour ferry stops on the other side and you have to walk round and cross the bridge.

Several of the food stalls that are here during the summer reopen …. this is the area for street food that opened after the food hall on Papiroen - immediately North of here but over on the other side of the canal - was cleared for the island to be cleared and developed with the construction of large and expensive apartment buildings.

This is an odd space and, when I say space, I mean space because this is not a formal urban square but is and still feels like a bit of land left over after the bridge was built. It has a large warehouse across the south side that throws the area into shade for much of the day; the inner harbour is to the west - with the pedestrian and cycle bridge over the harbour to Ny Havn - and the Christianshavn canal forms the north side of the area and, because it turns through 90 degrees, also the east side. The part of the space immediately behind the warehouse was once a dock basin where goods were unloaded and the north part variously wharves and boat yards.

When the development on Papirøen is finished, the Summer street food stalls are set to move back although I suspect it will not be able to recapture the atmosphere of the present food market here or the earlier food market when it was in the redundant warehouse on Papirøen before they were demolished. I don’t see how there will be space for the ice rink over there. I hope I’m wrong because it would be a loss.

The current rink on the current site has a very real vitality and, in part, that is because here, right now, making a noise actually does not matter. For now, there is no one living near here to be worried or to complain.

After the summer food stalls and the winter ice rink at the end of the bridge go then there are plans for more luxury apartment buildings on this site …. what a surprise.

 
 

Broens Skøjtebane
4 November 2022 - 26 February 2023
Sunday to Thursday 10.00 - 21.30
Friday and Saturday 10.00 - 22.30

update:

The ice rink is set to return on 6 November 2023 …..
so there is at least one more year

 

update - the new Hart Bageri on Holmen

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The small Hart bakery at the south end of the inner-harbour bridge has closed and their new bakery and cafe has opened slightly further out, on the other side of Papirøen, in the old timber-framed buildings of the mast sheds.

There is space for seating inside and there is a long terrace outside with seating and tables that look out towards the opera house.

Hart Bageri
Galionsvej 41,
Copenhagen DK-1437

 
 
 

today was the Copenhagen Half Marathon

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The start of the marathon was at Fælledparken and from there runners came down across the north end of the lakes and along, one block back from the lakes, before crossing over the lakes on Dronning Louise Bro. It was then straight on through Nørrebro to the railway station before heading west and south, down through to Frederiksberg on a zig zag route, to the harbour at Fisketorvet.

From there it was a long straight run - along the 02 - to Børsen and up to Kongens Nytorv and along Bredgade before swinging out to the east through Østerport to turn back down and back for the finish, back at Fælledparken.

Car traffic within the circuit was tightly restricted and at key points pedestrians could cross over into the inner city if there were appropriate gaps between runners or, at busy points, by temporary bridges.

The photograph is of runners was taken at Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Den Sorte Diamant / the Royal Library known generally as The Black Diamond. Here they are just over half way through the run but, at least, heading for home.

 

Car Free Sunday 19 September 2021

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Much of the centre of the city was closed off to traffic for the Copenhagen Half Marathon in the morning and signs and bariiers and marshalls were in place so the restrictions were kept in place through the afternoon for Car Free Sunday.

All the gantries for TV cameras were still in place on Dronning Louises Bro but after the runners are passed along Nørrebro the normally busy road was converted with food stalls and play areas for children including dance lessons. DJs set up sound systems and people broght out their deck chairs or just sat on the kerb chatting to neighbours. Kids used chalks to cover the tarmac with amazing drawings.

It all showed, only too well, what we give up to cars.

 

the sausage wagons of Copenhagen

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where Strøget - The Walking Street - crosses Gammel Torv

on the square in front of city hall in 1954

The Pølsevogn or sausage wagons are still a prominent feature on the main squares in the city but they have been around in Copenhagen for longer than many might think. They arrived here exactly 100 years ago …. licences were granted in 1920 but the first sausage stalls or hot dog stands opened on 18th January 1921 when six pølsevogn were set up around the city.

They were incredibly popular - there were 400 in the city by 1950 - and it was not long before they could be found in most cities in the country and pølsevogn were even taken abroad to keep fans supplied for major international sporting events. The number in Copenhagen had dropped to 60 by 2010 and I could not find figures for the current number of licences.

They are not allowed to stay on their pitch overnight in Copenhagen so some are towed away by car each evening although the endearing wagons have a large battery - usually driving a single front wheel - and with a long handle they hum along behind the sausage seller like a giant mechanical dog that follows the owner to the pitch in the morning and then heads for home in the evening.

The first carts had a large copper boiler to warm up the various types of sausage sold.

It’s a bit like the smell of fresh coffee or the smell of toast …. the smell of the sausages is hard to resist.

 
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out near the church of St Alban

L1176575.JPG

Kongens Nytorv

 

How, oh how, can you sell open sandwiches in the street?

I came across this photograph in the city archive on line when I was looking for something else and could not resist posting it here. For a start it is an amazing social document re the way men dressed.

That coat and the hat of the customer are amazingly elegant and, even now, I still prefer to wear trousers with turn ups - what I think Americans call a cuff - but also the rubber cloth coat of the boy and his cap and the fact he is wearing a tie is quite something and I like the contrast with the old man who looks as if he is dreaming of being able to afford a sandwich.

But the real question it raises for me is how smørrebrød - a Danish open sandwich - can be wrapped in paper let alone eaten on the move. I thought one advantage with the open sandwich, with all it's additions and layers, is that it makes people take a break …. makes them sit down to do the sandwich justice.

SMØRREBRØD.jpeg
 

coffee vans in the city

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L1176283.JPG

a cold Sunday on the quay of the harbour in January

There seem to be more and more of these small electric coffee stalls and food delivery vehicles around the city and they seem like a simple and safe place to get a coffee while so many places are closed because of the pandemic.

I won't complain because, despite attempts to cut down my caffeine intake, I still need inflight refuelling.

a sunny Saturday in January on Enghave Plads

L1176383.JPG

waiting outside the bakery in Nordhavn