Something to Declare

Last Day in Copenhagen

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Up and out to the Metro (as usual, clean, fast, efficient, uncrowded)…

…to take us to the Danish Design Museum (thanks again to Marilyn for this recommendation). On the way, we stopped at the Marmorkirken (Marble Church) in the ritzy Amalienborg neighborhood, built by Frederik V as a planned luxury town for the business elite.

The Design Museum building was originally a public hospital, constructed in 1757. We enjoyed exhibits of clothing design and fabrics, and design relating to pop culture:

There are also exhibits relating to common household gadgets, including a vacuum cleaner from the 1920s (shown below, above and to the left of the 1950s stove).

When we think of a “typewriter,” the image is of the ones with keys arrayed in tiers of straight lines. But it didn’t necessarily have to be that way: We were fascinated by a earlier typewriter design where the keys were set up in a curving array:

(But where are you supposed to insert the paper?). This “Writing Ball” was invented by Pastor Rasmus Malling-Hansen, who was inspired by the quick finger language of deaf mute children he taught. Patented in 1870, it quickly lost out to the American Remington Typewriter (seen above, to its right).

We then proceeded to the nearby Amalienborg Palace, the residence of the royal family. Since they were having a Changing of the Guards, and the flag was being flown, it meant that King Christian X is currently in residence.

Lunch time! We made our way from the Amalienborg to the Nyhavn, a 17th century waterfront, canal and entertainment district.

At a restaurant called Skipper Kroen, we enjoyed three varieties of herring (in Denmark, what else?) and smoked salmon with avocado:

After lunch, we proceeded to the Dansk Jødisk Museum (Jewish Museum of Denmark).

The museum was designed by Daniel Libeskind, a Polish-American architect who also designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. The museum features tilted floors (above, top), to create a sense of instability, reflecting the experience of the Jewish people in Denmark. (Since I use a cane, it certainly created a sense of instability in me.)

Exhibits included videos that depicted the heroic Danish 1943 overnight transport, by sea, of practically the entire Jewish population of Denmark to safety in Sweden. Among the objects displayed was a small life-vest worn by a 7-year-old girl.

Right next to the Jewish Museum are lovely gardens surrounding the building that had housed Det Kongeliga Bibliotek (Royal Library).

Then back to the apartment, to pack and prepare for the train trip tomorrow to Stockholm. As always, stay tuned.