Midnight Sunbeams; or, Bits of Travel Through the Land of the Norseman. Edwin Coolidge Kimball
part of the city adjacent to the railway station appears to be of very recent growth; its wide streets, lighted by electric light and traversed by horse-cars, are bounded by large hotels and imposing business blocks and houses.
In this quarter is the Tivoli, the most popular resort in Copenhagen, and a most attractive place on a summer evening. It is an immense garden, containing many handsome concert halls, gorgeous pavilions, restaurants, booths for the sale of fancy articles, and every conceivable means of amusement. You pay 50 öre (about thirteen cents) to enter, and are then free to select such entertainment as your fancy dictates. From six to eleven o’clock in the evening there is a change of entertainment every half hour. The first evening we spent at the Tivoli the programme began with a concert from a brass band; then for half an hour in a beautiful concert hall in a different part of the gardens, a string orchestra of sixty performers played selections from one of Beethoven’s symphonies; after which there was a rush to watch, during the next half hour, a trapeze performance in the open air, followed by jumping, tumbling, and walking a wire; the brass band gave another concert; an operetta in one act followed, the audience sitting in chairs beneath the trees before the stage; then came the second part of the orchestral concert, with selections from Wagner’s Tannhäuser. In another part of the garden, a play at a small theatre occupies the next hour, and you begin to feel that you have received many times the worth of the price of admission; and yet the programme is not exhausted.
As the lingering June twilight deepens, the gardens are illuminated by festoons and arches of lights in colored globes, the façades of the cafés, restaurants, and other buildings blaze with light, and the entire grounds become a picture of enchantment and festivity.
The lively Danes sit at little tables beneath the trees, eat cold sausage, drink beer, and take in the music, the same as their near neighbors in Germany.
You can explore grottos and caves, sit in romantic arbors, or promenade through leafy allées lined with statues, copies from the antique and Thorvaldsen’s masterpieces. If you long to spend a few surplus öre, there are open cars rushing like a whirlwind down one hill and up another much like a roller toboggan; merry-go-rounds with boats furnish you the motion of the Baltic and the sensation of sea sickness on a limited scale, or you can take a cruise on a diminutive steamer up and down a contracted lake; you can gaze upon the fat woman, the living skeleton, or the double-headed girl, peep through a camera obscura, shoot at glass balls, and blow to test your lungs. There is everything for all classes, for this is the great and original Tivoli, which has many imitators, in Germany and other European countries, but still remains without an equal. At stated periods there are fête nights, when fireworks and extra illuminations are furnished, but at any and all times the Tivoli is a pleasant place in which to spend an evening, and one that no traveller should miss seeing.
The Danes spell the name of their city, Kjöbenhavn, but it is difficult to recognize in this combination of letters our New England name of the kissing game with the rope, called Copenhagen, which you, gentle reader, have doubtless played at some period of your life. Perhaps it is a Yankee game after all and not Danish, for nowhere in Copenhagen did we see it played, not even at the Tivoli, where every conceivable form of amusement is furnished.
The environs of Copenhagen offer a variety of pleasing and interesting excursions. The horse-cars will take you in half an hour to Frederiksburg, a very enjoyable ride, as the cars are constructed after the general European model, with a narrow staircase ascending to the roof, upon which are comfortable seats, whence you have an unobstructed view. The Frederiksburg Palace, standing upon an eminence, has been converted into a military school, from the long shaded terrace in front of which you have a beautiful view of Copenhagen, with its towers and spires. The adjoining gardens were occupied by family parties taking their lunch in picnic style, and the neighboring natural park of Söndermarken offered many shady and agreeable walks.
One morning we left by steamer for Helsingör, the trip occupying three hours. We kept close to the Danish coast, calling frequently at the little settlements, for during the first half of the journey there is a continual succession of small sea-bathing resorts, with inviting villas and cottages which were just being opened for the season.
Helsingör, the Elsinore of Hamlet, is a small and uninteresting town, where we found no one who could understand English or German, but had to make our way with the few Danish words in our possession. It is but a short distance to the Kronberg, an ancient fortress built, in 1577, on a low promontory extending out into the sea, at the point where the Sound contracts to its narrowest limits, so that it is but a short distance across to the opposite Swedish town of Helsingborg.
The Kronberg is surrounded by a broad moat and ramparts, and its numerous lofty gray stone towers rise from a steep and many windowed roof; from the flat roof of a great square tower is an extensive view, embracing both the Danish and Swedish coasts, and the narrow Sound, separating the two countries, animated with numerous shipping. The interior of the castle contains a chapel with carved pulpit and choir stalls, and we were shown the apartments occupied by the royal family on the occasion of their rare visits, which are rather shabbily furnished, and filled with very mediocre paintings, painted we judged by contract at so much per yard.
The flag battery looking seaward, where the Danish colors float from a lofty flagstaff and cannon command the entrance to the Sound, is said to be the platform before the old castle of Elsinore, where the first scene of Hamlet is laid, and where his father’s ghost appeared to Hamlet, “the melancholy Dane.”
A short distance north of the Kronberg is Marielyst, a fashionable sea-bathing place, to which we walked along the sandy beach, strewed with shells and seaweed. As it was still early in the season, the Kurhaus was not yet open, and the place had rather a deserted look; nevertheless it impressed us as a very pleasant resort, from its combination of sea and forest; and the many pretty villas in the neighborhood attested its popularity. At a hotel we found English-speaking waiters, and after being served with a good dinner, we visited a pile of stones surrounding a small column said to mark the site of Hamlet’s grave. Our faith in its authenticity was not strong enough to move our feelings or to make us realize that we stood upon hallowed ground; instead of lingering to weep over a pile of stones, that knew not Hamlet, we hurried to Helsingör to take the railway train to another palace. My travelling companion was a German. On the steamer on our way to Helsingör, three German Jews, travelling for pleasure, had approached us seeking to form our acquaintance; they were not disagreeable to me, but my friend, who had a German’s inveterate hatred for a Jew, would not speak to them, and besought me to repel their advances. We had encountered them everywhere—at the Kronberg, at Marielyst, and they greeted us upon our arrival at the station; so it was evident they were making the same round of sight seeing we were, and my friend insisted, in order to escape them, that we should take a first class ticket, knowing well that they would not follow our example. In Denmark, as in Germany, only blue bloods travel first class, and we received all the attention we should have merited had we been princes of the royal blood.
During our short railway journey we passed by Fredensborg, the summer residence of the Danish royal family, where every summer the most famous mother-in-law the world has ever known holds a family gathering, which comprises nearly half the present and prospective Crowned Heads, Majesties, and Royal Highnesses of Europe. Certainly the King and Queen of little Denmark have made most brilliant matches for their children, and settled them well in life. Their eldest daughter is the Czarina of Russia, their second daughter is the Princess of Wales and the future Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India; the eldest son will be the next King of Denmark, and his brother is the present King of Greece. The Czar seems to especially cherish his mother-in-law, and it is said that only in Denmark can he feel secure of his life, and take a little comfort. It is doubtless to her mother’s careful and practical training that the Princess of Wales owes her lovely character, and that she in turn has made such a good and devoted mother, and is to-day the most popular lady in England. It is pleasant to think of this royal family—parents, children, and grand-children—laying aside the cares of royalty and state, and meeting every summer at the old home, like any family in the lower walks of life, in common love and affection, and enjoying themselves in simple ways.
We leave the train at Hilleröd, and to escape the Jews take a cab to the palace