An indoor garden

The Glyptotek in Copenhagen not only has a lot of fine art, but also a very fine indoor garden with palm trees, shrubbery, benches to relax on and this central little pond.

A nice setting for art

The Glyptotek in Copenhagen has perfect settings for the art on display. This is no museum of random placements and odd pieces, here everything has been thought through.

Colours, not white

At the Glyptotek in Copenhagen some of the heads of the Roman or Greek marble statues, or rather casts of heads from said statues, has been painted in realistic colours. That's not just a fancy idea, but a way to show how the statues looked originally, as they were painted to look more lifelike when they were created. The paint has been washed off over time giving us the impression that they were all white. On the photo you can see a bust of Caligula in white and colour.

Free on Sundays

A good place to spend a Sunday afternoon in Copenhagen is at Glyptoteket, where you can get a nice shot of culture. Entrance is free on Sundays, so expect crowds. The exhibitions range from old Egyptian sculptures to French impressionist masters. And then they have one of the best little cafés in town with an extravaganza of cakes.

Cleaning windows

When you build a 23 story high hotel with a lot of class façade you also need to clean the windows. At Bella Sky they use both a platform and abseiling cleaners. Not a job for the faint-hearted I think.

A leaning hotel

At the Bella Centre, the big conference centre on Amager in Copenhagen, the Bella Sky Hotel has been finished and is now open for business. The two towers are leaning more than the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa, and with  its 23 floors, 812 designer rooms and 30 flexible meeting and conference rooms, the hotel is the largest hotel in Scandinavia.

End of season

This weekend the season in Tivoli ends and the amusement park closes down, at least until October where they are open for a week in the autumn vacation of the schools.

With the construction of the new metro line in Copenhagen, there's a lot of constructions sites that need something to make them easier on the eye. On Kongens Nytorv in the centre the fence here has been decorated by the street-artist Shepard Fairey when he visited the city in August.

Design to improve life

The motto of the Copenhagen Design week was "Design to improve life", and in my opinion that pretty much sums it up. Designs should improve life in one way or other, it should be nice to look at but it should also be practical. A chair that is beautiful also has to be comfortable or it'll just be a waste of space and money.

An airbag for bicyclists

The Copenhagen Design Week also features an award for the best design called Index: Award. The winner of the PLAY category was Hövding (Swedish for chief) which was an airbag for bicyclists. And with the bicycle Road Race World Championship in Copenhagen this week, they should have ample change for testing it in the real world.

Big tables

At the newly held Copenhagen Design Week the city was full of examples of good (and bad) design. On Rådhuspladsen (City Hall Square), these two gigantic tables called LACK from IKEA where an example of sustainable design and conscious choice of materials. The LACK table is produced many different places in the world to reduce unnecessary transport, however the first and the largest production sites are situated in Poland.

A fish a day

Last weekend was the Day of the Fish in Copenhagen which is a day where the fishing industry promote their products to the people of the city. With a lot of stalls, free samples, competitions and live music (a band called Tørfisk - Dried Fish) at the City Hall Square (Rådhuspladsen) they did get their message through. This monkfish was the centre of a competition, where you could guess the weight of the beast and win a price.

You call that a knife?

Not only food is sold at the new market halls in Copenhagen. Some of the stalls sell other things like this one called Knife for Life selling handmade knifes. Here you can also get your knifes sharpened and you can buy other cooking utilities as well.

Market Halls

On Israels Plads in Copenhagen a construction site has been changed into two new market halls at the site where the old vegetable market was 50 years ago. The stalls are already filled with food shops of every kind; butchers, greengrocers, bakers, fishmongers, coffee shops, gourmet take-aways and many others. Hopefully these market halls will survive after the initial interest has died down.

Mama Rosa

On the pedestrian street of Strøget in Copenhagen there's a lot of fancy shops, cafés and restaurants. Near Amagertorv a Latin restaurant called Mama Rosa caters for the tourists that want to try Mexican, Italian or Spanish cousine. What most tourist doesn't see if they just follow the crowds on Strøget is the wall of paintings at the back street of the restaurant. These wall paintings add a true Latin atmosphere to the area.

The prize in today's voting!

Some of our readers might wonder about the organisation of the Danish Parliament as seen in the photograph of the day.

The Danish parliament (‘Folketinget’ in Danish) consists of one chamber with 179 seats – 175 seats in Denmark and two each for the Faroe Islands and Greenland.

Of those seats, 135 are distributed through proportional representation in the 10 constituencies. Constituencies have as few as two representatives (Bornholm) and as many as 20 (Zealand Constituency).

An additional 40 seats are allotted based upon the total distribution of votes in three voting regions – Central and Northern Jutland, Zealand and Southern Denmark and Greater Copenhagen.

This is what today's voting is about!

Going Green

The economy is the star of the 2011 election but there are a number of other issues that will play important supporting roles. One of these is the Climate. In a country where the effects of global warming can have catastrophic results people are much more aware of this than else where.

These days, saving the climate is as much a matter of ‘green growth’ as it is preventing the Arctic from melting, and discussions about the issue are carried out in the shadow of the overall economic situation.

In this election both sides seem to agree that the country can’t afford not to invest in sustainable energy, but blame each other for the lack of progress.

Cyclists seems to agree!

Posters everywhere!

No-one is safe from the Scourge of the Poster People it seems. Cyclists at Nørreport station whizz past these posters daily on their way to and from home.

Danish politics might seem rather polarized to outsiders and Danes love to complain about their politicians. Yet consensus, a strong belief in democracy and one of the highest voting turnouts still dominate Danish elections.

It seems that these posters are more a way for parties to draw attention to their good-looking candidates than their policies.

Rushing to vote?

Danes love their democracy. In international studies, Denmark usually ends up in the top three of countries where people are most satisfied with their system of governance. The average voting turnout is usually between 83 and 89 percent, which is among the highest in the world.

Around 170,000 people (4.5 per cent of voters) are members of a political party, also a high number compared to other countries.

Are these people rushing to go voting? Not really, I took the photograph during rush hour!

The Young Ones

Attracting young voters have been a key priority of the parties fighting the 2011 election here in Denmark. The use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter is ubiquitous and the message seems to say "An informed public is the basis of legitimate government."

Many young candidates are in line to be selected to the Folketinget and this will change the demography of the decision makers even more.

No improvement

Not all voters think the election posters are pretty so some try to liven them up with a bit of creative paint of their own. In most cases, like this one, it doesn't make them better but just gives a sense of some people in Denmark being more than just a bit juvenile.

The talk of the country

This is what it's all about in the news and among people in Denmark at the moment; the Danish Parliament at Christiansborg (Christan's Castle), or rather the elections for the 179 seats there coming up on September the 15th. The main topic so far has been the sorry state of the economics, with a lot of talk and a lot of promises being made.

Not less of a mess

For the last year or so Copenhagen has been looking like one big construction site with all the roadworks and the preparations for the new metro-line. In the last two weeks a lot of posters were added to the messy sight that greets citizens and tourists alike. Just about everywhere where it's allowed (and quite a few places where it isn't) election posters has been put up prior to the general election coming up on September the 15th. There's a debate going on if these posters actually turns any votes or not, but to me they don't add anything pretty to a city that's already a bit messy.

Just your average Sunday!

Kastellet, located in the eastern suburbs of Copenhagen, is one of the best preserved fortifications in Northern Europe. Today it is a peaceful, protected area, serving as a public park and a cultural-historical monument, a far cry from its military past. On this occassion thousands of people descended on the park for the annual Ecco Walkathon.

Waiting for the couple

This horse and carraige is being used in the wedding ceremony of a couple who married in the Church of Our Lady (Danish: Vor Frue Kirke). This is the cathedral of Copenhagen and the National Cathedral of Denmark. It is situated on Vor Frue Plads and next to the main building of the University of Copenhagen.

Enjoying the last rays of sunshine

From Gammel Strand and Nyhavn, every day of the year, one can catch a canal and harbour tour. These tourists are enjoying one of the last days of summer to explore Copenhagen by water. The tour takes you through the old and the new parts of Copenhagen. This photograph was taken near Knippelsbro.

The Fallen

This is the monument to Danish soldiers who perished in service of the Danish and Allied Forces in World War II and is located in Churchill Park, Copenhagen. It is by Svend Lindhart and the preliminary work for this can be seen in Køge, to the south of the city.

Renovating an Institution

On Kongens Nytorv in Copenhagen an institution has been covered up; the Hotel D'Angleterre is under renovation for the next year or so. Instead of having its guests endure dust, noise and inconvenience , the new management decided to close down totally until the work is finished. As a five-star hotel, I guess it wouldn't do to have the guests complain too much.

Zirkus Nemo

At Ofelia Beach one of the shows has been the circus "Zirkus Nemo". This circus is for adults and young adults only, though.

A Free Scene

Right next to the new Copenhagen Theatre House an outdoor vendor has being taken place during summer; Ofelia Beach. Built on a disused wharf, the "beach" has been advertised as a place to hang out with beach bar, beach volley, small concerts, shows etc. This summer weather has not been with this novel idea, though. One of the more curious things has been this stage, where people passing has been free to perform for other people. I haven't seen any performances here, so I can't testify to the quality of the performances.