Busy, busy, busy!

We haven't blogged for a few days because we've been so busy, fitting lots of interesting things into our remaining few days here in Copenhagen.

We visited the Resistance Museum, which is a tribute to the role played by a group of Danish citizens who formed an underground movement to resist the Nazi occupation of their homeland. The museum has hundreds of fascinating exhibits, including printing presses, examples of newsletters, very emotional letters written home by prisoners, hand-made guns and other weapons, a torpedo, sketches and items smuggled out.

On Wednesday we walked to the Church of Our Savior and climbed the beautiful Baroque copper staircase which winds its way like a corkscrew around the outside of the spire. The 360 degree views of Copenhagen, including the wind turbines in the bay, were stunning.

Next on the schedule was a visit to Christiansborg Palace in the city, which houses the Parliament, Royal Reception Rooms where the Queen receives foreign ambassadors and important dignatories, the Prime Minister's Office and the Supreme Court. The palace's copper tower is the highest in Copenhagen, but the real eye-openers are the magnificently decorated rooms, particularly the Great Hall which is the largest room, and the dining room which is the setting for state dinners and royal events for as many as 400 guests. The walls are covered in woven tapestries the likes of which I've never seen before - 60 weavers took ten years to create these as a 60th birthday gift for the current Queen of Denmark. They are utterly breathtaking, bright and colouful, celebrating a thousand years of Danish history.

Yesterday, C and I went shopping at Field's shopping mall, the largest shopping centre in Scandinavia - I don't know how to account for the four hours we spent there, except to say that purchases were made and fun was had! When you're away from home, every item in every shop is more interesting and desirable than whatever's available at home - I know it often seems that way, but seriously everything in Copenhagen really is interesting and desirable and I constantly wish finances and luggage space were limitless. The hard part is knowing this is only the beginning of our trip and there are several weeks and three countries to go.

As I have no shopping mall photos (which is for the best) I'll now take this short break to insert some photos of deliciousness and a photo of a knitted bridge - the Danes love to "enhance" statues, monuments, bridges and public buildings - sometimes a top hat or a beret will mysteriously appear overnight on King Christian X's head, for example. Having said that, I'm told the knitting thing happens In other parts of the world and is called "yarn bombing". Oh, and there's a photo of the guards who passed us by in the street - every day they march down the street at midday on the way to the Changing of the Guard process at Amalienborg Palace. Most Copenhagen people don't even pay any attention, as it's just part of daily life.

We will return to normal programming after the break . . .

Danish pastries for elevenses

Spice stall at the local market

Bread selection at the bakery

Knitting on the bridge in Christianshavn

Nougat stall at the market

On TripAdvisor, the number one "must-see" in Copenhagen is listed as The David Collection. We thought that was a compelling enough reason for us to visit and the free admission wasn't to be sneezed at, after constantly having the wallet out for every exhibition, palace and tourist site over the past week. The founder, C L David, was a lawyer who had a private collection of artwork specifically Islamic art from the 8th to the 19th century, as well as collections of early Danish art and 18th century European art. The collection comprises thousands of items including beautifully presented silverware, paintings, sculptures, trinkets, jewellery, earthenware, pieces of ancient architecture and hundreds of old coins. These are housed in a rabbit-warren of rooms and tiny up-and-down staircases leading to dead ends. At the risk of sounding like a Philistine, I confess that after the first couple of rooms of "stuff" I felt claustrophobic and had had enough. It won't be number one on my own list of "must-see" attractions in Copenhagen.

Despite threatening weather we took a train out to the town of Roskilde today. It's about 25 minutes from the centre of Copenhagen and is famous for its stunning Cathedral built around 1170, when the art of brick making had only just been introduced to Denmark. Roskilde Cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is stunningly beautiful. I won't describe every aspect of it, but here are some of D2's great photos from today's visit.