Copenhagen Day 2

For our second day in Copenhagen, there was one trip that had been very well researched - a trip to the Carlsberg Brewery Visitors Centre! It was about 20 minutes stroll from our hotel and is one of the most impressive buildings in terms of decorative architecture I've seen.

The visitors centre costs DKK 60 which is around £7 and includes 2 free drinks (soft or beer), this in itself makes the ticket a bargain as you would pay somewhere in the region of £6 a pint in most Copenhagen bars and the staff all speak several languages like most places in Copenhagen.
The tour starts with the largest sealed bottled beer collection in the world and it is impressive!

Row upon row of bottles, there are also screens with more info and Carlsberg adverts, but we just spent ages looking at all the different labels!
The rest of the tour guides through not only the history of the Carlsberg Brewery & beers, but also of the workers and the city of Copenhagen, pretty much all of the written information is in both Danish and English.

Like most tourist attractions there is also a gift shop which has all manner of Carlsberg/Tuborg related merchandise - we were quite gutted that we couldn't take stuff home in the suitcase with us, they had some nice bottles/glasses etc..
After the gift shop is the aroma room - this was my favourite part of the tour - numerous bottle with various aromas in that are used in beer

the idea being that you sniff them all and mark on a card which aromas you like most, then there is a corresponding chart hanging from the ceiling which tells you which beers you should try based on their aroma. My favourite aromas included coffee, cereal & bread! So then it's on to the Jacobsen Bar where you collect your free drinks - with over 35 types of beer to choose from you are spoilt for choice!
The bar also does some nice Danish food which is also reasonably priced

The menu for food & beer can be downloaded from their website - most beers (after the free ones) cost DKK 25 which is about £3. Also if that isn't enough, in the centre of the room you can see the bottling plant, which is the only part of the tour where you'll see actual brewery action.


After all the fun of the brewery tour, we had a casual stroll back towards our hotel, which is when we noticed all the sex shops on the same street!
We had decided to take in some art in the afternoon so we went to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

This gallery also charges DKK 60 to enter, but it wasn't really worth it in our opinion, unless you're really into 19th Century/Early 20th Century French/Danish art works.

We thought the Early Egyptian/Ancient Roman & Greek artefacts would be interesting but without any context as to why they were collected (the translations were quite sporadic) it left us cold - we'd seen similar collections in Tunisia that seemed far more coherent.

It's probably worth noting that in Winter/off season (ie October to March), most Danish tourist attractions close at 4/5pm which feels quite early.

After this we headed back to our hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, then went for an intended wander, however we didn't get very far as we ended up at the end of the street (literally 30 seconds away) in the Jernbane Cafeen a train themed bar/pub. It was very quaint and friendly - the staff spoke good English although we had a bit of trouble explaining which type of Carlsberg beer we wanted, however - there were folders/menu's on the table, and after pointing at what we wanted we ended up with a good ol' Carl's Lager

The bar train theme (we assumed because of the proximity to the station)was pretty impressive - the seats were from trains, all numbered along with destination plates etc.. the toilets even had train sound effects when you entered! They also had one of the cheapest slot machines I've ever tried, for about £3 we had around 80 goes, of course the winnings were also minimal and we didn't really know what we were doing, but it was fun.

Eurocultured

The Bank Holiday Weekend of 25th/26th May saw the return of the Eurocultured Festival, I went with Ant & Elizabeth - we only managed to make the Monday, but was a nice cheaper alternative to Hungry Pigeon (which I wanted to go to, but was a wee bit to skint/busy to go to). We arrived at just after 1pm and paid our dues to go in, only to be turned back as "they weren't ready yet", told to come back in half an hour, we retreated to the nearby Grand Central pub, which over looked the entrance.. to see the others we had been "thrown out with" being let back in.. sigh!
So after finishing drinks in GC we headed to the Font where we had arranged to meet any other flickrites who might be in the vicinity. Had some nice food in the Font (as usual, I had my old fav, the chicken Caesar wrap!) The weather kinda went a bit clouded over at this point, although still warm, so we had a wander around, marvelled at the graffiti, especially this piece:

By Fauna - although I freely admit, didn't know anything about until someone on flickr pointed me in the right direction!
We saw a band or two on the stage that was powered by bicycles, but ended up heading into the Thirsty Scholar where Adam's friend was DJ'ing - really cool Hip Hop set with some cypress hill and plenty of old school hip hop, was the best set I'd heard in a while


As well as bands and Dj's and the afore mentioned graffiti walls for artists to create pieces over the weekend the festival also had a market area

selling everything from tshirts to scarves to jewellery, as well as a nearby Haunted House which was also a bouncy castle. We would've stayed a bit later but the weather which had been quite overcast, really started to turn, so we went home! Great Day in all.. i hope to see more of it next year maybe (As I seem to have missed it the past 2 years!) Rest of the photos here

Photographic Portrait Prize 2007 - The Lowry

I went to the Lowry Centre today to catch the Photographic Portrait exhibition, which closes this weekend. And whilst I found it quite enjoyable I do have mixed feelings over whether I enjoyed the exhibition or not, maybe it was my own fault for expecting something slightly grittier than what I saw, my preconceptions being led in particular by this photograph

Portrait Prize winner Joseline Ingabire with her daughter Leah Batamuliza, Rwanda, from the series Intended Consequences: Mothers of Genocide, Children of Rape, by Jonathan Torgovnik © the artist.
I suppose I was expecting portraits that told a story about the subject, but I found many were simply portraits of children who were in some way related to the photographer, that appeared to have been used for the photo as they were readily available.. or again, maybe I read too much/too little from the snippet of information on the descriptions.
The photos I did find very striking included Alex Hurricane Higgins by Michael Donald (albeit displayed in a rather odd position in the gallery) and Alice & Fish By David Stewart. A small sample of the finalists can be found on the National Portrait Gallery website.