One of the best moves I made in planning my recent trip to Europe was hiring Jon Martin to take us on a bike tour of Copenhagen. We found his information in Rick Steves’ 2007 travel guide to Scandinavia, in the Copenhagen section. After experiencing an almost Epcot (Disney) feel in some of the cities due to massive herds of summer tourists, Jon took us off the beaten path. If you want to see Copenhagen as only the locals do, and view places few conventional tours go, then this will be as fun for you as it was for us.
One of the highlights of a day filled with highlights was seeing Christiania. It’s an autonomous part of Denmark founded by and still run by a group of hippies who seized some old military barracks over 30 years ago.
But not for long. It was a real snapshot in time seeing Christiania, because it looks like it will soon vanish. A law has been passed ending the commune’s de facto autonomy. Already people are getting eviction notices, according to Jon.
Not more than a 10 minute ride from the city, we arrive.
Next is a photo of Jon telling us that we are about to enter Pusher Street. “Pusher,” I think, assuming it is a Danish word. Still not getting it, I listen to Jon explain how there was more “wheat” sold here than any other steeet. With my mind still in the Middle Ages from the historical sights we have just visited, I’m thinking how cool for the kids to see this, as I imagined stockinged farmers bringing bales of wheat to market hundreds of years ago.
Then Jon tells me to put away my camera because “illegal transactions” take place on Pusher Street, and if you have a photo of it your camera can be seized for evidence. I chuckle, thinking he is kidding, but I do. After all, in Russia, one couldn’t take pictures in many of the museums. So off we go. As we round the first corner, I am hit with the smell of marijuana. “Weed,” not “wheat” I immediately realize, as I stare in horror not at the sight of the open air hashish stands, or the hippies and Euros of all sorts smoking or buying it, but at my kids’ delighted expressions. Cool–I can see the word glowing in their eyes. I imagine my daughter’s friend, whom I took along with us, e-mailing home to let her parents know:” Sue took us to a street where we got to see people doing drugs!”
The street is filled not only with hippies–and some of the best people watching ever–but herds of pit bull dogs. One lumbers across my path. I see the locals stop to watch–will the outsider hit our dog. It grows suddenly and eeerily silent; a cloud passes over the sun. It’s like the old West, the bad guys glancing up from their card game at the new sheriff, smoke wafting across their hardened faces. I squeeze the brakes, hard. The pit bull escapes my screeching tires. The locals go back to smoking and buying, and I survive my crossing of Pusher St.
The rest of Christiania is pristine countryside.
The houses are self-constructed and totally outside any building codes. All but one home, Jon said, has been given orders to be torn down.
I loved this house (foreground)–it reminded me of something out of a post-apocalyptic thriller:
The streets were dirt with very few cars.
Another house. Or maybe aliens landed. It’s hard to say…
Then, across the river, one can see the first of the new, planned developments in this area. These are expensive homes. Within a few years, this will be what Christiania looks like, a wealthy area.
We are nearing the border, in just a few minutes of biking we wiil leave this…
…going out the gate and reentering the European Union
to find ourselves back in the city:
What an abrupt change! Gorgeous, modern Copenhagen, and so different from Christiania.
I highly recommend than if you are in good enough shape to do it, take an independent bike tour of the cities you are visiting. There’s no other way to see the sights up close and personal than with a local, and especially with one as personable and knowledgable as Jon Martin.
