On the March--our last day in Copenhagen

I finally got enough sleep to feel human, and so was ready for the long day we planned.

We made a quick visit to Magasin (the department store) for some small purchases, and then headed down to  Amalienborg Palace--the home of the reigning queen.  Fortunately, it's a pretty short walk down Bredgade, Alexis's favorite street.  Along with Cafe Oscar and the Russian Orthodox Church, this is one of my favorite sites on Bredgade:

I LOVE this dragon!

Bredgade has some wonderful window shopping, as I've mentioned before.  There are lots of antique shops and Danish Modern Furniture stores.  There are also jewelry and clothing shops.  The little number in the middle caught Alexis's eye:

We saw the same exact dress in the window of a Malmo store.

The palace is right on the water and includes a number of buildings arranged in a circle.

The flag indicates that the crown prince is in residence; there was no flag at the queen's residence, which means she's away.  We believe we heard someone say that the queen may have been part of the group who closed off the Karen Blixen home yesterday.

We were quite early, so we walked down to the river.  Directly across the canal from the palace is the Opera House which was a "gift" to Queen Margarethe on her 70th birthday (2010).

We watched the palace guard for a while,

and then it was 11 a.m., and the museum opened.

Our Copenhagen Card gave us access to the Palace (as it had to the National Museum and the Jewish Museum), and then we were ready to walk through the house.  The palace consists of four buildings of equal size, one of which is under renovation.  Only the museum is open to the public.  The interior tells the story of the Danish Royal family, and features rooms used by various monarchs over the past 200 years.  One of the cutest features was a sign at kid-level designed to engage kids.

While the Danish Royal Family was not the most powerful or wealthy in Europe, at one point the king and queen were known as in-laws to a number of Europe's monarchs (U.K., Russia, Greece, Spain, Sweden).  Alexis is intrigued by Princess Dagmar, who became Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, mother of Nicholas the last Tsar of Russia.  She was a beautiful woman.  Her sister, Princess Alexandra, became the Queen consort of Emperor-King Edward VII of the United Kingdom.  The two were very close until later in life when a rift developed.

The palace museum featured a number of rooms made up to look as they had when previous monarchs were alive.  My favorite rooms and scenes were these:

They had a nice display of the wedding of Queen Anne Marie of Greece (Queen Margarethe's youngest sister).  Apparently, when she and her husband had to abandon the throne in 1973, they had to abandon many of their possessions, including her wedding gown.

Frankly, I'm most interested in the Danish Royal Family because of King Christian X, the current queen's grandfather.  His story has heroic quality to it.  According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "both the King and the majority of the Danish people stood by their Jewish citizens and were instrumental in saving almost all of them from Nazi persecution and death." Another source reports, "In addition, he helped finance the transport of Danish Jews to unoccupied Sweden, where they would be safe from Nazi persecution.^[3]  With a reign spanning two world wars, and his role as a rallying symbol for Danish national sentiment during the German Occupation, he has become one of the most popular Danish monarchs of modern times."

The last symbol from the palace which caught my attention was this flag:

According to the placard, this is the royal standard which was hoisted on May 5, 1945, the day Germany surrendered.  The usual function of the standard is, as noted earlier, to indicate that the monarch is in residence.  During the last of the war years, however, it was not raised as King Christian considered his role suspended.  Apparently, Christian didn't support the parliament, so he's not really a democrat, but he did some outstanding things in his lifetime.

Our next target for the day was the Little Mermaid.  Anyone who's read Hans Christian Andersen understands why this is a must see.  It was worth it.  She was vandalized a number of years ago, but she looks pretty good today.

She's a lovely little thing.  I love her.

From there, we headed off to the State Art Museum.  It was a bit of a schlep, but we picked up some buck-you-uppo at a coffee shop at the Norreport Train Station.  It was then a pretty direct walk through a park to the Museum.  We focused on Danish art from the late 18th to early 19th centuries  My favorite piece was this one.

Look closely and you'll see that he's knitting...with FOUR needles!!

I'm also a sucker for these kinds of paintings:

This is, obviously, an Italian scene painted by a Danish artist named Carl Bloch.  The expressions on the three prominent figures' faces is fantastic.

I had to take a photo of this guy:

This statue is of a victorious foot soldier from the war of 1848-1851 which maintained the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein from leaving the kingdom of Denmark.  It is also noteworthy as the first sculpture commemorating war to NOT feature a goddess, general or monarch, but rather an ordinary soldier.  It's a particularly poignant image as it represents a bygone era.  Within 13 years, the Prussians had victoriously claimed the two duchies.

We ended our day at another restaurant on the canal.  Dinner was good, but we have to prepare for our trip tomorrow to L'viv in the Ukraine.

Keep your fingers crossed for a safe journey.