The Kingdom of Denmark is the geographical link between Scandinavia and Europe. Half-timber villages and tidy farms rub shoulders with towns and a few cities, where pedestrians set the pace, not traffic. In the capital, Copenhagen—København in Danish—mothers safely park baby carriages outside bakeries while outdoor cafés fill with cappuccino-sippers, and lanky Danes pedal to work in lanes thick with bicycle traffic. The town was a fishing colony until 1157, when Valdemar the Great gave it to Bishop Absalon, who built a castle on the site of what is now the parliament, Christiansborg. It grew as a center on the Baltic trade route and became known as købmændenes havn (merchants' harbor) and eventually København.
In the 15th century it became the royal residence and the capital of Norway and Sweden. From 1596 to 1648 Christian IV, a Renaissance king obsessed with fine architecture, began a building boom that crowned the city with towers and castles, many of which still stand. They're almost all that remain of the city's 800-year history; much of Copenhagen was destroyed by two major fires in the 18th century and by British bombing during the Napoleonic Wars.
Today’s Copenhagen has no glittering skylines and little of the high-stress bustle of most capitals. The morning air in the pedestrian streets of the city's core is redolent of baked bread and soap-scrubbed storefronts. If there's such a thing as a cozy city, this is it.
We will be spending two days in Copenhagen so on this first day I ventured out on my own and do my favorite Hop-On bus tour of this city.
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EVENING ENTERTAINMENT: "GISELLE" BALLET
Tonight I went to the ballet to see one of my favorites, Giselle. The opera house is so beautiful!!!!
The story of Giselle is a romantic tale of innocent love and betrayal; of philandering Count Albrecht and a trusting peasant maid, Giselle. Her beauty has enchanted Albrecht, he disguises himself as a peasant. Giselle, resists Albrecht’s advances,only to succumb to his ardour.His plans are thwarted by the arrival of a hunting party which includes the Duke of Courland and his beautiful daughter Bathilde, to whom Albrecht is already engaged. Bathilde is enchanted with Giselle and her youthful innocence. When Giselle tells the princess that she is engaged, Bathilde gives her a necklace, unaware that they are betrothed to the same man. Hilarion, a gamekeeper in love with Giselle, discovers Albrecht’s disguise. Consumed with jealousy, he reveals his rival’s true identity. Giselle loses her reason, and the first act ends with the famous mad scene, and her death.
Giselle has been buried deep in the forest and has now become a wili. The wilis are ghostly apparitions of folklore, girls who have died betrayed by their faithless lovers on the eve of their weddings. Hilarion is discovered mourning at Giselle’s grave. Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, summons her maidens, who haunt the forest, luring wayfarers to dance with them until they die from exhaustion before the dawn. Hilarion is forced to dance until he dies.
Albrecht, full of remorse, comes to mourn at Giselle’s grave. The Queen commands Giselle to come from her grave and entice Albrecht to join her in dance. Giselle continues dancing with Albrecht through the night. Although she has been betrayed by Albrecht, Giselle still loves him, and helps him to stay alive until the dawn, when the wilis lose their power and will not be able to destroy him. With the arrival of the dawn, Giselle vanishes back into her grave, and Albrecht is left alone with his sorrow. But his life is saved.
This was a long day so when the show ended at 10:30 I was ready to get back to my comfy bed on Sky Princess.
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