A LESS POPULAR PART OF COPENHAGEN

Copenhagen's University District and Latin Quarter

          At the end of my Danish biking trip we spent a couple of delightful days in its capital, Copenhagen. As we headed toward  the university during a walking tour of the city  the guide told us, “In 1801 Denmark had the second largest navy in the world and Lord Nelson wanted it. Denmark said, ‘No’, so in 1807 he returned to bomb the church and much of the city including the university and library. The old university buildings that survived date back to the 1400s.”

            The Latin Quarter, an area near the university is where priests and professors once lived. It is so named for the Latin scholars, not the Latin people. Today many of these 1600s buildings are used as college dorms . Most are built as a square with a small driveway on one side leading into a center courtyard.

King Christian IV built a large round tower in the Latin Quarter. One can walk to the observatory at the top for a magnificent view of the city. Gold letters on the side in Latin, Hebrew, and Danish translate to: ‘lead the crown into wisdom and justice’.

Our walking tour ended at the Amelienborg Palace where there is a large bronze equestrian statue of King Fredrik in the center of the courtyard. The statue took 22 years to make and a year and a half to put in place. It also cost three times that of the palace and took 23 days to bronze!

The guide continued, “This palace was built in 1748 by order of the king, originally for four wealthy and influential businessmen. The architect made the exterior of all four buildings the same; however, the interior of each has been individualized. After the previous palace burned, a little arm twisting took place, and the whole compound was given to the royal family.

"The royal family has occupied the palace since the 1700s.      Queen Margrethe lives in the mansion on the right and the prince occupies the adjoining one. The Queen Mother lives in the next one and the fourth is used for important official occasions.”

The palace square is large enough to hold 35-40,000 people. We were fortunate enough to be winding down our city tour at the palace just minutes before the changing of the guard. It was a pretty impressive ceremony. I was lucky enough to watch the changing of the guard a second time on another trip to Denmark.