Copenhagen churches

April 29, 2015

The Church of Our Saviour - Copenhagen

Who, upon seeing this golden spiral on a church, would not want to climb to the top? When I visited Copenhagen at the beginning of March, early in the morning on the day I had to leave, I walked past The Church of Our Saviour. 

When I stopped to take some photos, a man who was quite possibly the city's Oldest Inhabitant stopped to chat with me.

You can go up there," he told me, in rather good English. "It just opened in March."

Upon learning that I was Canadian, he told me that he had been in the merchant navy and had sailed on a ship that went up and down the west coast from Vancouver to San Francisco.

Of course I wanted to go up there, but it was closed, so like (and unlike) Robert Frost, I left that climb for another day, hoping that I would someday be back.

And when I came back eight weeks later, I headed straight from the train station across the bridge to this church, where I wound my way up 400 steps to the highest point possible. And it was amazing!

                                                                                            Copenhagen is a bit of a fairy tale city even from the ground -- but even more so from the top of a tower. 

The photo above shows the inside of the church. Not too shabby.

After that exhilarating climb, on my way out of the Christianshavn neighbourhood, I spotted another church that looked interesting: Christian's Church.

 I walked up the street and spoke to the man standing at the door, who told me there was a special service going on, but that I could visit the crypt. 

Why not? The door was open, so I entered.

It was a bit creepy, but something different and interesting. These wrought iron gates, dating back to the 1700s, are varied in design and elaborate and quite beautiful. There were probably 50 of them.

And the church yard was quite beautiful as well -- a shady and quiet retreat in the middle of a busy city.

Leaving this neighbourhood and crossing the bridge, I came upon yet another church -- the Naval Church:

This was built in 1563 and is quite spectacular, with a model ship suspended from the ceiling.