Third time’s the charm!

So 2010 is the year of repeat travel with this weekend being the third time for a visit to Copenhagen. Pat was in town for a conference so of course I piggy-backed on to his weekend in between conferences. Heh. We weren’t planning any sort of crazy weekend of running around seeing the sights since between us we’d seem most things so this weekend was about relaxing and eating our way around Copenhagen!

The Sightseeing

We did see some of the sights including a visit inside City Hall where they were having an art exhibition. I really liked the stuff that Soren Bjorn Maleri does especially his “On Tape” work:

It being Christmas the “trees” had also started to come out

One of the places I hadn’t visited before in Copenhagen was Kronborg Castle. The Castle is a fortress located in Helsingør on the sound between Denmark and Sweden. This part of the water is not very wide and therefore the fortress was an important strategic stronghold – whoever controlled the pass would have control of the revenue. A UNESCO World Heritage site the Castle is a good option for a half day trip from central Copenhagen.

Krongborg has embraced the future with interactive elements, such as using your own mobile phone to hear the dramatisation of the life of a prisoner in the fortress and the “light”, the sounds of cannons, soldiers and horses as you walk about giving you a feel of being surrounded by activity and then the “light” show which brings the stone statue to life.

Getting on the guided tours of both the Casemates and the Royal Apartments is worth your time. Our tour guide was especially excited and energetic in her story telling. A tour of the Casemates takes you deep underground to where the soldiers used to live. I couldn’t believe the conditions they were kept in – underground cramped conditions with little access to fresh air and terrible food. The 8 litres of watered down beer probably made it a little easier to cope but you wouldn’t think that you’d treat the people you expect to defend you so terribly. And the types of men mixing down there ranged from 12 year old boys to murderers. I don’t know how they survived mentally with nothing to do but walk for 15 hours in a 10 meter diameter circle.

In contrast the tour of the Royal Apartments showed that life for the upper class couldn’t have been more different. Our tour guide talked about excesses and eating to the point where you were sick (it was a sign of status that you actually got to that point and they even had official tonsil ticklers responsible for shoving a peacock feather down your throat to make you throw up) and to holes in chairs so that royalty didn’t have to get up out of their chairs to stop their eating and go to the toilet.

The castle is also renown for featuring in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Every year the Castle hosts a version of Hamlet and our tour guide was gushing about the time Jude Law came and did his version.

Things to look out for in the Royal Apartments are the trick tapestries and the C4 designs. The below tapestry was cool – depending on where you walk the main guy’s leg gets thinner and thinner. Cool optical illusions. There is also a lot of meaning within the tapestries and social commentary.

As for the C4 designs, a symbol for Christian IV who rebuilt the castle, there are supposedly hundreds of these crests hidden all over the place.

The Food

Next to the sight-seeing, being in Copenhagen provided more opportunities to visit some more nice eating places. First up on Friday night was Reef ‘N’ Beef – I’ve never had Aussie food so posh before! The restaurant is a popular place so that even at 9.30pm the place was crowded and we were lucky to get the last spare table in the joint. Service was, as Patrick was quick to defend, typically Danish, casual, slow but friendly. Just as well we weren’t in a big rush to go anywhere! Food was excellent – great quality and very good balance in the ingredients, beautiful and thoughtful presentation as well.

My starter was a “Oz Wildfire Wonton” (Crocodile Wonton) with a Honey and Passion Fruit Chili Drizzle. A bit of a take on sweet and sour sauce over Chinese wantons. I loved this starter but it didn’t last nearly long enough. Pat went for the “Ranina Ranina”. Panko crumbed saffron and chive spanner crab cakes with bush tomato romesco, jalapeno aioli and pickled vegetables. From all reports it was a winner with Pat though the jalapeno didn’t have as much bite as I was expecting.

I moved on to a fish dish for my main course with the “Red emperor”: Deep sea fish with macadamia and lemon sauce, cauliflower puree and seasonal vegetables. The cauliflower puree was something special and I loved the touch of the macadamia and lemon sauce. A nice light and filling dish. Pat went for meat with “Redcliff Beef” marinated with garlic, native thyme and tasmanian mountain pepper served with potato fondant, crispy onion rings, caramelised onion puree, seasonal vegetables and shiraz sauce. Lots of ingredients and gee it looked good and tasty. Beef was cooked to perfection.

Finally, dessert was an “Oz trilogy” for me. This consisted of pavlova, passionfruit cheescake and mango olida eucalyptus sorbet and Pat had the richer “Death by chocolate” of five individual chocolate desserts.

If I’m ever in Copenhagen again I’d definitely come back to Reef ‘N’ Beef.

On Saturday night we spoiled ourselves with a meal at Michelin-rated Italian restaurant Era Ora.

On Sunday we had buffet brunch at Lele Nha Hang. Brunch in Copenhagen is very popular and this was no less evident than at Lele Nha Hang. A combination of Western and Eastern food it’s a great value for money meal. Offerings at the buffet include the usual Eggs, Bacon, Waffle etc. plus sushi, wonton, Chinese soup, porridge, satay, spring rolls, fried rice and then a giant dessert table including chocolate fondant.

Accommodation

We found that accommodation was actually a bit hard to find this weekend but we couldn’t work out why until we saw all these people in white going out on Saturday night. Apparently Copenhagen was hosting one of those famous White Parties. We ended up staying at the Omena Hotel which was part hostel part hotel. You don’t check in or check out – you are given a door code which locks you out strictly come check out time. Really weird! On Saturday morning there was a false fire alarm so we got to see that most people staying in the hotel were young nearly teenie boppers!

Great weekend in Copenhagen once again.