Copenhagen Cultural Night

Copenhagen Cultural Night (Kultur Natten in Danish) is an event where many of Copenhagen's cultural establishment: museums, churches, exhibition halls, galleries, political institutions, and other venues all over swung open their doors to public for 6 hours at night (from 1800 until 2400) and only for a single day http://www.kulturnatten.dk/media(417,1033)/Engelsk_program_2008.pdf


The whole city is an integral part of the event including the public transport system where one can hop on & off any bus, train, metro and even boat service with the night pass. This year, at a price of DKK75, I participated in the event with the night pass (which is actually a badge that you wear throughout the night). Unfortunately, 6hrs is not enough to visit all 196 participating locations so selection was made on where to visit.

My first stop was the Town hall. Simply because it's the nearest attraction to my starting point and the building is so beautiful. Hundreds of years of history's mural & iconic wall lamps are still well maintain with people working in the building. The town hall offers free pancake but the queue seems never ending, I gave up :p

Pic: snap shots of Copenhagen town hall, inside & outside

Pic: Volunteers making fresh apple juice with traditional method

Next stop: Post & Tele Museum, where I get to design my own stamp and get a sheet of 50 stamps sent to you afterwards (still waiting). Kids above 5 can also make their own tele-animal where they simply disassemble old phones and build a 'tele-fant', a 'croc-mobile' or funny insect!

Pic: 'Transformation' of old phones into cute 'gadgets'

Pic: The Copenhagen Postman-Orchestra plays outside

Then we went to this tram coffee shop (where the whole café is actually an old tram) to have pit stop. Nice & cheap cappucino to warm up the cold night.

After we gathered our strenght, we moved on to the middle age market. Danish arsenal museum is right beside the market place so we make a slight detour where knights in shining (er...not really shiny) armour can be spotted. The middle age market was a relatively small one with just few stalls. We were too late to catch the Tordenskjold’s Soldiers performance where uniforms, weaponary and tactics used in The Great Northern War 1709-20 are shown, canons fired & tambourines played. I like it that the stall owners are all dressed in middle age attire, cool ;)

Pic: Danish Arsenal Museum

Pic: middle age market & very fast moving stall sellers (to imitate middle age people's fast move? hmm...)

Just outside the market, cross the street is the new modern beautiful Danish library - Black Diamond. I like the architecture personally. Too bad my camera didn't take good picture (partly also because my own lousy skill) but I'm sure google will provide good pictures of the Diamond upon searching.

Then the final stop: Parliament. We ge to walk about on our own inside the Parliament building, meet politicians & the staff (whom I have no idea who's politician & who's staff if I meet them) and being squeezed like sardine fish in a can. So many people is interested in the parliament, next year I'll go to the prison instead :p

Pic: Internal & external shot of the Parliament. Bottom right is the voting / communicating device the politicians use. Green, red & yellow, that's how the regulations are voted.

Some shops / retail stores that are not participating in the cultural event (basically because there's nothing so 'cultural' about shops) also extended their opening hour until mid-night & even offer one night sales. Some shop went the miles to use real human as display model for the night. Diesel actually have a female model 'bathing' in bath tub in front of the display window on top of the sales to attract customers.

One can easily get free soup, free bread, free drinks, free potato chips & even free condoms while walking on the street. Of course, there are also some who tried to make use of the opportunity & set up 'illegal' stalls to earn a 1 night 'fast money'. With 55,000 participants this year, Copenhagen turn so alive on the Cultural night.

One major down side of the event is: everything is only in Danish (excpt the online guide). So if you don't speak English, be ready to ask around for what's happening. Anyway, I still enjoy the night with great & funny companies. There are still so many places that I wanted to visit but didn't have the time & capability (too tired walking) this time...I look forward to next year.


Cultural Night 2009, be ready to welcome me ;)