The first city I visited in Europe was Copenhagen. Here we took an excursion called Walking Tour of Copenhagen. Our guide was very knowledgeable and took time to tell us the history behind many of the sites we visited. Her English could be improved, though. Many times we had to really concentrate to understand her.
Weather wise, the day was overcast. Conditions ranged from gray, to threatening to drizzle, to short periods of sunshine.
Our walk began and we headed out toward the Langelinie Promenade. I was really taking notice of the different street signs and housing designs we came across as our group walked. This being my first time in Denmark, or even Europe for that matter, I wanted to take in everything we saw.
We soon arrived at the Maritime Monument (Søfartsmonumentet), near the Langelinie Marina. The monument is a bronze, winged female holding a laurel standing atop a base that depicts boating scenes carved in relief on each of its sides. According to our guide, it is a memorial to the workers who died working on the docks. (When ‘fact-checking’ my notes before posting this segment, I found another version of the story. It says that the monument commemorates the Danish merchant seamen who died in service or at sea during World War I. Which one is correct? I’d like to know.)
A couple of minutes later, the beautiful Langelinie Marina itself came into view. And there along the waterside in Langelinie Park was the Little Mermaid statue. It rests on a rock balanced upon a larger rock that juts out of the water.
The Little Mermaid statue was cast in 1913 by sculptor Edvard Eriksen. It is based on the story of the same name by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen and was commissioned by Carl Jacobson, son of the founder of Danish global brewer Carlsberg. Jacobsen had seen the ballet based on the tale and was so impressed by it that, well, we are now admiring the result. The figure depicts Ariel, the mermaid, becoming human.
The bronze sculpture is one of Copenhagen’s most famous landmarks. As such, it has attracted its fair share of vandalism. Considering how famous it is, it is a surprisingly small statue. Way smaller than I thought it would be. The statue would be celebrating the 100th anniversary of its unveiling the month after we visited. We stayed here for a couple of minutes, long enough for everyone to take all the photographs they wanted.
Walking again now. Two minutes later, we passed within view of the only windmill we’d see on the walk. A grass-covered hill and a building with a red tile roof obscured the base of the windmill. It would have been nice to walk over and get a look at the front of the windmill, and possibly learn its purpose. But, alas, no. We kept walking toward the Ivar Huitfeldt Column. This is a monument to Admiral Ivar Huitfeld and his men. They died in a naval battle during the Great Northern War.
I was starting to take notice of how close all of these important sites and 
landmarks are to each other. A few minutes later we came up on the Princess Marie of Orléans monument. Marie was born in France, originally a French princess by birth. She married Prince Valdemar of Denmark and became a Danish princess. She was quite politically active for her time. And very unconventional. People complained about her unusual behavior, both as royalty and as a woman. “Let them complain,” she famously said. “I am just as happy nevertheless.”
It was here at the statue of Princess Marie that the first of the tour buses we would encounter appeared. Our guide, in what I first took to be a stereotypical statement, warned us the tourists on this bus were from China and had a tendency to monopolize the sites. They would walk right up to the monument/statue and take lots of pictures, walking without regard right in front of whoever else might be trying to take a photo at the moment. She was right. The bus opened its doors and the passengers did exactly as she said. Luckily, we were just finishing up and we moved on. I took a look back and saw that all of the vantage points for photographing the Little Mermaid had been taken. Tourists from this bus and other sightseers were swarming all over the rocks, right down to the water’s edge.
Right by the Princess Marie of Orléans monument was St. Alban’s Anglican Church in Langelinie Park, also known as “The English Church”. It is the only Anglican church in Denmark. The church rests in a very serene, very beautiful setting, surrounded by canals. The area comprising the park is large and includes many buildings, the marina, statues, a playground, and monuments. We didn’t spend much time here as we walked by outside the church.
Right by the church is the Gefion Fountain (Gefionspringvandet). The sculpture features a woman on a plow driving four strong oxen. The legend behind the fountain goes like this: Swedish king Gylfe offered the Norse goddess Gefion (Gefjon in Norse) as much land as she could plow in one day and one night, a 24-hour period. So Gefion got smart and got some help. She turned her four sons into powerful oxen. Together they plowed the land, rather deeply. The dirt they raised was deposited into the Danish sea and became the island of Zealand, the main island of Denmark. So what happened to the area of Sweden that Gefion and her sons plowed? Legend continues that Lake Vänern in Sweden (some versions of the story have the name as Lake Mälaren) closely resembles the shape of Zealand (Sjælland in Danish). Lake Vänern is the largest lake in Sweden and in the European Union.
As for the fountain itself, some say the fountain’s waters depict the spray kicked up by Gefion’s mighty oxen as they did their work.
After hearing the story of Gefion, I was very impressed. The incredible ingenuity she displayed was inspiring. Yet another example of the saying, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
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