Sign in with Facebook"Operas and cycling in Copenhagen" Top 5 Page for this destination Copenhagen by Nemorino
Copenhagen Travel Guide: 4,600 reviews and 9,116 photos
Copenhagen is one of the world's foremost bicycle cities.
It is also the home of a stunning new opera house, simply called Operaen = The Opera, which opened in 2004 on the harbor directly opposite the Royal Palace.
And it also has a beautiful old gilded theater called Gamle Scene from the year 1874, where you can still see fine ballet and opera performances.
Copenhagen is often described as "a city of cyclists" or "the world's cycling capital", but you will also hear the opinion that there aren't any "cyclists" in Copenhagen, just normal people wearing normal clothes who use bicycles daily as their main form of transportation.
Their argument is that they also use toothbrushes to brush their teeth and vacuum cleaners to clean their floors, but that doesn't make them toothbrushists or vacuum-cleanerists, does it?
Whichever way you take it, this is a great city to cycle around in, and the people who do it are visibly healthy and energized when they arrive at work or wherever they're going.
The city's newest attraction is a fantastic world-class concert house called DR Koncerthuset, also known as K3NC2R1 HUS4T, which opened in January 2009 in the new district of Ørestad North -- not in the traditional city center but only twelve minutes from my hotel by bicycle.
When planning your visit to Copenhagen you should book your opera and concert tickets in advance, since all three venues -- Operaen, Gamle Scene and now the new Koncerthuset -- are very popular and might be nearly sold out before the day of the performance, even though they do reserve a small contingent of tickets for last-minute sales.
You should also definitely plan on renting a bicycle for your entire stay, either from your hotel or from one of the dozens of rent-a-bike places around the city, but in my experience it is unnecessary to reserve a bike in advance because so many are available.
Hafnium 72
Copenhagen is one of only six cities in the whole world that have elements named after them.
But don't worry, the element in question is not called copenhagenium or københavnium -- that would sound too silly, even for an element.
Fortunately Copenhagen also has a Latin name, Hafnia, so the element with 72 protons that was discovered here in 1923 was named hafnium.
It turned out to be a shiny, silvery metal that is ductile, meaning it can be shaped without breaking. Hafnium is not a very common metal, but it does have its uses, for instance in control rods for nuclear power plants and in some kinds of alloys and semiconductors.
72 is quite a large number of protons, especially when you consider that an atom of hydrogen gets along perfectly well with only one proton, helium with two, lithium with three, beryllium with four, boron with five, carbon with six, nitrogen with seven, oxygen with eight, etc.
The other five elements named after cities are holmium after the Latin name for Stockholm, lutetium after the Latin name for Paris, berkelium after the American city of Berkeley (California), dubnium after the Russian city of Dubna and of course the world-famous darmstadtium after the German city of Darmstadt, with 110 protons.
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Written Jul 24, 2011
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Rainy days in Copenhagen
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Written Jul 24, 2011
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Sunny days in Copenhagen
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Comments (51)
I have to visit Copenhagen one day.
Ciao!
Thought it would be good to read your advice on Copenhagen...Do you know the Admiral hotel?
Marg
Came back for another visit as I shall be in Copenhagen for a week at the beginning of June. No cycling for me, but love your wheelie take on the city. Like the photo collages too.
Enjoyed reading about the Worker's Museum. Your tips are always informative, sometimes humorous, and interesting. Love Cycle "chic"; blue stripe technique, info about helmet or not, amazing info about Orestad, your unique hotel. Too bad about the rain
Don, I had to realise that back in Auhgust 2009 I was actually one of the very first vistors of your brilliant Copenhagen page. You have done some fine updates since then. Well done.
Fantastic info about Copenhagen, it is a pleasure to read your tips! Big hugs from Rio de Janeiro!!!
I like the humour in your tips. The indirect info in your tip about Kafe knallert for instance. You know, Danish words are sometimes pretty understandable for someone who speaks Dutch. Made me roar.
The new opera house looks great! I haven't been in Copenhagen since 1995 and it seems there are many new grand buildings I haven't seen. Came back to read the rest of the tips. The raised cycle tracks sounds to be a good solution!
Your reference to the periodic table of Mendeleev with Hafnium initiated a feeling of nostalgia for my first year of chemistry. Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?
The player piano we call a Pianola. I used to love playing them when a child. You are very sensible wearing a bicycle Helmet, it is law to wear them here.
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