This is the statue of Hans Christian Anderson that is situated in the Platz in Copenhagen!
Saturday 25th
Day 176
Copenhagen, Denmark - city of fairytales and vikings!
What a day! We´ve been to fairyland and back!!! As we were wondering along one of the main roads here..Hands Christian Anderson Straede we came across the museum of his namesake and of course we had to go in!
We were actually going to go on a walking tour and i´m glad we didn´t because it was so much better exploring for ourselves.....
He wrote the Ugly Duckling..Thumbelina, The Wild Swans (with the girl Elise in it!), The Little Match Girl and the Emporers New Clothes! And literally hundreds of others but these were a few that we were able to read and hear in story and animation while we were there in the museum. It was so much fun!
Apparently the Hans Christian Andersen fairytales are second in sales only to the Bible!!!
One of the things that i thought was really funny was his comment about being ugly! He said his colleagues used to always say he was ugly..so around 1847 when he did a self portrait he wrote ´His nose is as mighty as a cannon and his eyes like green peas!´ Later, he wrote The Ugly Duckling which was a reflection of his own life.`
And another thing that we read there about his life..was that he was a great friend of Charles Dickens! And in the timeline of his life it said in 1857 he óutstayed his welcome at Charles Dickens house!´
Interesting hey...love to know more about that story!
I don´t think he was ever married or had children himself..even though he spent his life writing stories about children. I guess what made him popular to children, and adults alike (children of all ages!) was the fact that his stories and fairytales always had a moral. Some skewiff if you look on the surface...but underneath they are sophisticated, multilayered and subtle.
And his fairytales and fables seemed to reflect his own life in a way, because after reading all about him in the museum dedicated to him we saw that he was born simply in Odense to a father who was a cobbler, and died when he was only young and his mother a washerwoman..He left home at 14 to go try out the theatre life in Copenhagen..
So he really was the poor boy in his fantasy stories that became rich, and soon mixing with the famous and kings and queens!
He died in 1875 with his last fairytale being, ´The Flea and the Professor
Later..we joined the tour that we booked at the hotel...the Viking Tour and headed off to Roskilde which is about 40 or so km´s away.
This is one of the reconstructed viking longboats!
We saw the five viking longboats that they found in the 1950´s and retrieved in 1962. We even dressed up as vikings......and got pics and all that stuff! So much fun!
Viking..means warrier of the sea.
And they certainly conquered a lot of places in Europe. We saw a film about it and when they said the pillaged the lands and traded..i thought what about the rapes. They didn´t mention that...and later a guide said they ´settled´in a lot of the lands they pillaged..............
A great experience!
The early 1800´s are so interesting! Napoleons Battle of Waterloo...when Goethe wrote Faust (that we saw in Prague), when Sir Walter Scott wrote Ivanhoe, when Beethoven composed his 5th Symphony......so many cultural firsts duing that time..especially the first 20 years! I´d really like to learn more about it..
So why are we so keen about history?
Well, there is a saying that goes like this, Ìf you keep one eye on the past you are blind in one eye. If you FORGET the past, you´re blind in both eyes!
I guess we don´t want to be blinded...
We had Franske Hotdogs which are the mainstay diet of Copenhagers i´m sure...! They´re buns with a hole in it..filled with mayo and ketchep and then have a sausage poked in it.................and hanging out.....................
And to go with that...we had an icecream.........in those wonderful waffle cones. Honestly i´ve never eaten so many icecreams in my life..i think i have a new addiction. But i figure with all this walking we´re doing...why not!
Why not indeed.........
It´s the tastes and flavours that colour our memories isn´t it?
There´s the gay pride still happening here in Copenhagen..and lots of music and the fireworks that go off at 11.30pm at the Tivoli that we´re going to venture back out to see...
And we have the Carlsberg beer to try...maybe tomorrow...
Cool place that´s for sure!
xxx
PS Great to hear the Dockers won! And the Eagles!!!
