Bike (Magic) Mike tour (Denmark Day 2)
On Day 2, the whole crew got together to go on a bike tour of Copenhagen with Bike Mike. Our first stop was the second oldest building in Copenhagen--and the oldest church--Sankt Petri Kirke.
The interior courtyard of the church is used by the private German school adjacent to it as a playground for kids. It's an interesting approach that public spaces can be more than one thing. I don't know that these bits of stone work in the pic below came from a remodel of some building, but I like to think so. The stone benches angled around the cobbles square are an example of something I notice all over Copenhagen--public spaces have at least one area where the seating encloses a space. Sometimes it's a rectangle, sometimes a circle. It's a group orientation manifest in the built environment of public spaces that I don't see often in the US.
As for the rest of the tour, we were warned ahead of time that riding in a group (about 27) is a gnarly experience. Putting 27ish bikes in a row, even if two-by-two takes quite a length of space. It also takes quite a lot of time to get through an intersection, especially for left-hand turns. Bike Mike (in the yellow buttondown shirt) dodged and pedaled us to and through more places than I could track while adjusting to unfamiliar spaces and readjusting to foot brakes.
From what I can remember, we stopped outside of or rode through the grounds of Sankt Petri, the Round Tower (A), the National Art Museum (B), a cemetery (which one?), the Kastellet (C), the Little Mermaid (D), the royal living quarters (E), a food pod along the waterfront (F), the Kissing Bridge (more on that in another post), and a bit of some park before ending at a bridge that crosses over into Freetown (G). Below is a best guess as to the route, except that I know we rode around the big green park that "Kobenhavn K" covers up on the map.
No one crashed. Only one local guy made a comment about a large group (that I saw), and everyone made it through to the end. I'm not sure how much of that is due to Danish cycling infrastructure design or pure effort to overcome jetlag and not take out a fellow being by falling over. Whatever the blend, it was possible to so, which can't be said if most places in the US.
Requisite statue pic: The Little Mermaid, (the forlorn version, not the Disney version).
We happened to be there when the tourist count was low. The approach to the bouldered slope to the waterside was blessedly free of warning signs about it being rocky or potentially slippery. It's also free to the public.
Next up: Copenhill, or the Danish take multi use to new heights.
Random pic of the day: the ridiculously healthy pigeons of Copenhagen.
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