Travel Blogging VI

Copenhagen, Denmark: The DrsC took a canal boat tour of Copenhagen today and learned that, to a lesser degree, the Danish capital is water-based like Stockholm. Substantial parts of the city are on “made land,” which is to say places where mud and silt were dumped to build new islands. The Copenhagen model more nearly resembles what the Dutch have done than the Swedish model.

Stockholm was built on rocky islands that exist as part of the post-ice age upthrust. Upthrust continues to this day as land compressed by a mile or more of glacial ice overlay expands now that the glaciers are gone. As a result of the upthrust new islands are added every year to the thousands in the Stockholm archipelago.

About Copenhagen, it is a clean, attractive city with some palaces, a few churches, and many commercial and residential buildings. Granite cobblestones are widely used, I suppose because they are more substantial than asphalt or concrete. Set in sand, I’d guess they don’t suffer from frost heaves or erosion caused by anti-ice salt. I’m glad we don’t use them in the States, they are nasty to walk on.

We saw the famous Little Mermaid today, she’s about life-size and very well done, sitting on a desk-sized rock quite near the shore. I’m ashamed to say I don’t know the Hans Christian Andersen story about her, though the other DrC remembers most of it. We both have seen the Disney movie but aren’t too sure it is faithful to the original.

Maersk, the huge container freight firm is based in Denmark. It makes sense; Denmark is in a key location to be in the middle of several trade routes.