Sunday, January 2, 2011

wonderful Copenhagen in days of old

 
 

Denmark's capital city is spelt locally as København or "merchant's harbour".  In Sweden it is called Köpenhamm or "shopping town" (cognate with Chippenham).  The English name seems to have come from the German.  Since 2000 it has been connected with Malmö in Sweden with the 7.9 km Øresund combined road (top deck) and rail (bottom deck) bridge, an impressive engineering feat, which many in lower Sweden use to access the Copenhagen airport.

At the time of these photos, however, the city still relied on sea connections, even within Denmark, as it is on one of the country's islands and the long interisland bridges had yet to be built.  The trams ceased completely in 1972, although a 21 km metro, supplementing the S-ban, has been progressively opened in the last decade.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Funny how you can spot the windmill at 'Løvens Bastion'; today a restaurent without the top

Unknown said...

Also funny, how you can se the ruins of Christiansborg castle (in 4,5 & 8). The castle burned - for the second time - in 1884 and was rebuilt in 1907-1927. Today it is the seat of the parliment (folketinget), the danish prime minister's office (Statsministeriet) and of the supreme court. The current building has never been a royal castle, but the regent has beatifully decorated reception rooms at the castle.