Rundetaarn (the Round Tower)!

As a final Copenhagen outing before Emily left on Monday, she and I visited the Round Tower, one of the more famous landmarks in Copenhagen, offering a beautiful view of the city from above. It happens to be only a few blocks from DIS, where we were doing homework so after a delicious lunch at St. Peder's bakery, we set off.

The tower, built in 1642 by Christian IV, is part of the Trinity Complex, made to unite the three most important facilities available to scholars during the 17th century: an observatory (which is at the top of the tower), a church, and a library. I'd seen the church before, but I'd been waiting for a friend and a clear day to pay the 25 DKK (~$5) to go up the tower. It rises 114 feet above street-level and the viewing platform is only accessible by walking a long and winding cobblestone ramp inside of it. The ramp is 686 feet long and spirals 7 and a half times from the base to the top. Supposedly Christian IV ordered that a ramp be used to access the tower because he wanted to be able to ride a horse to the top, rather than having to walk... ha!

Up and up and up we go
          We found plenty of ways to be silly...

There were many windows that offered views as we climbed higher and higher

If you got tired on your winding journey and needed to take a bathroom break, you had TWO options:
a toilet probably installed in 2005 (R) or a toilet during the 1600s (L)

One of the last views from a window before we arrived at the top

DENMARK! 

A perfect blend of old and new: wind turbines generating renewable energy and buildings from 100s of years ago

The sun sort of sucks the color out of this scene, but it's still beautiful...

...And there is enough color here to make up for it!

View through a railing

Diagram showing which portion of the city you were looking at

This is one of my favorite pictures

!

beautiful Denmark

Me and my new home!

Emily headed back down the stairs to the winding ramp

One last view through some more windows

The tower

We couldn't have picked a better day to go (thanks to the weather service): the skies were clear and since it was a Monday, there were very few other visitors. We enjoyed the last few hours of Emily's  visit and eventually made our way back to DIS to finish some work before I dropped her at the metro and headed home. 

Tak for besøget, Emily! (Thanks for the visit)