Carlsberg Brewery

As you may know, Carlsberg is "Probably the Best Beer in the World." The original Carlsberg Brewery - Probably the Best Brewery in the World - is in Copenhagen, so how could we not go check it out?

The Carlsberg complex in Copenhagen is very big. Here's one mammoth gate...



...and here's another. This is the famous elephant gate, whose inspiration comes from a similarly hard-working elephant at Minerva Square in Rome. This elephant is one of four carved from granite. One of the elephants features a swastika, which was a symbol of good luck until the Nazis adopted it. Carlsberg used the swastika symbol in its advertising until that time and then wisely retired it - except where carved in granite, anyway. You can see that Laura and I wisely chose a non-swastika baring elephant for this picture.



We took the brewery tour, which of course they say is Probably the Best Brewery Tour in the World, though it was considerably less flashy than the Guinness or Heineken versions. One fact I found very interesting is that Carlsberg does a huge percentage of its business in the UK - probably more even than in Denmark. This meshes nicely with our observation in London that Carlsberg was everywhere.

At the end of the tour, we happily redeemed our tickets for free beers; you see Laura enjoying her beer below.

The Many Statues of Copenhagen

Copenhagen is a very attractive city, not least of which because of its ample ornamentation. There are statues and fountains everywhere that depict everything from fictional characters to national heroes to Greek gods to animals to Bible stars. You'll see below just a small sampling of all the fantastic statuary in the city. (Apparently Laura and I weren't the only ones to notice this feature of Copenhagen - check out a more complete Copenhagen statue gallery on Wikipedia.)

There is a star among the many statues in Copenhagen, though. Perched atop a rock in Copenhagen harbor outside the park Langelinie sits the famous bronze depiction of Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid.

Hans Christian Andersen was Danish, and the fairy tale was published in 1837, but it was not until the story attracted the interest of Carl Jacobsen (of Carlsberg Brewery fame) that the statue was commissioned. It was completed in 1913 by Edvard Eriksen. It's a nice piece of artwork, though you might be surprised that the statue is very small - just over 4 ft.

After nearly 100 years of sitting atop that rock, I guess the Little Mermaid is getting bored - she's on her way to the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai soon.