Aside from drooling over the maritime museum, I also found a few observatories in Copenhagen.
The Botanical Gardens contain Observatory Hill, the highest point of the inner city of Copenhagen. Which is certainly not much. But it has an observatory on it and a statue to the astronomer Tycho Brahe.
On Googling info on Tycho Brahe I came across this site, the Scientist Tourist, and realised there is much more to discover, such as Tycho Brahe's 16th Century observatory on Ven, a Swedish Island in the Oresund. I'll pop that on the list for next time. There's also quite a thing about his false nose which he lost in a duel in the next location I visited. OK, that's not a geo fact whatsoever but you never know when it might come in handy.
The second observatory I found was up the Rundetaarn.
This 17th Century tower has no steps but a 209m long spiral ramp which winds 7.5 times around the hollow core of the tower. It's only 36m high. The ramp was built to serve the observatory: pushing astronomical instruments up a slope is an awful lot easier than lifting them up steps.
The observatory is the oldest functioning observatory in Europe and some of its old instruments are on display.
I was very pleased to discover that if I stood on the glass floor, approx 25m up the hollow tower, I was standing directly above Denmark's point zero. It's not everyday that you stand at 0, 0.
The second tower of the day, sans observatory, was Vor Frelsers Kirke, Church of our Saviour.
No astro goodies here and no slope, however a great interest factor of a corkscrew staircase which twists initially internally, then externally up the spire.
The steps get narrower and narrower until they eventually peeter out.
You can just imagine how wonderful the views were.
And just when I thought it couldn't get any more exciting, we found a mess punkt. My Copenhagen Odyssey was complete.
The Botanical Gardens contain Observatory Hill, the highest point of the inner city of Copenhagen. Which is certainly not much. But it has an observatory on it and a statue to the astronomer Tycho Brahe.
On Googling info on Tycho Brahe I came across this site, the Scientist Tourist, and realised there is much more to discover, such as Tycho Brahe's 16th Century observatory on Ven, a Swedish Island in the Oresund. I'll pop that on the list for next time. There's also quite a thing about his false nose which he lost in a duel in the next location I visited. OK, that's not a geo fact whatsoever but you never know when it might come in handy.
The second observatory I found was up the Rundetaarn.
This 17th Century tower has no steps but a 209m long spiral ramp which winds 7.5 times around the hollow core of the tower. It's only 36m high. The ramp was built to serve the observatory: pushing astronomical instruments up a slope is an awful lot easier than lifting them up steps.
The observatory is the oldest functioning observatory in Europe and some of its old instruments are on display.
I was very pleased to discover that if I stood on the glass floor, approx 25m up the hollow tower, I was standing directly above Denmark's point zero. It's not everyday that you stand at 0, 0.
The second tower of the day, sans observatory, was Vor Frelsers Kirke, Church of our Saviour.
No astro goodies here and no slope, however a great interest factor of a corkscrew staircase which twists initially internally, then externally up the spire.
The steps get narrower and narrower until they eventually peeter out.
You can just imagine how wonderful the views were.
And just when I thought it couldn't get any more exciting, we found a mess punkt. My Copenhagen Odyssey was complete.
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