On my last entry, I gave you the parts for my Copenhagen TV script puzzle. I enjoyed your comments and suggestions.
Someone asked why I’m re-doing a show we already did. I produced about 50 shows in the 1990s with a different production company. I’ve kept about a dozen of these in circulation, including an episode on Copenhagen with a side-trip to Ærø. Why update? Things have changed hugely in Denmark in the last 10 years, I like the way we make TV better now, the new generation of TV is high-definition and widescreen, and the original show rushed Copenhagen to include the lovely island of Ærø…plenty of reasons to bring out two shiny new shows on Denmark: one on Copenhagen only and the other on the Danish countryside (including Ærø).
Here’s the structure I decided on for the Copenhagen script. I’m flying to Rome today and over Hudson Bay I’ll be pounding on my laptop to come up with a Copenhagen script. I’ll post it in a couple of days. Skål!
Copenhagen TV script structure to be shot in July 2008:
Canal Tour – lively open cruising past glorious Copenhagen cityscape
City lay of the land, talk about moats and walls, expansion
Little Mermaid, Han Christian Andersen statue, obligatory mention, short
National Museum, for real history — sweep from Viking age
Town Hall Square, start town walk for city orientation
Introduce Christian, local guide who’ll be my side kick for half the show
Strøget, pedestrian boulevard, use as spine to cover Danish cultural insights
Smørrebrød, open-face sandwiches, have Christian demonstrate the ritual, fun eating
Rosenborg Castle, park with naked Danes sunbathing, tour palace which introduces Christian V the greatest king, see sumptuous crown jewels
Cathedral Neoclassical statuary, a bridge from castle to Thorvaldsen’s fine statues
Thorvaldsen Museum, Neoclassical statues
Nyhavn, Beer and pølse, fun with people on harbor, beer on the street culture and the “dead man’s finger” hotdogs with social commentary (lingo, employment scheme for disabled, etc.)
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art gallery (city’s best gallery, transition: paid for by beer money), fade to black (say goodbye to local guide, end of day)
Slick new Metro, new day, modern city, commerce
Free loaner bikes, pick one up to explore colorful Christianshavn
Christianshavn, quaint old Copenhagen
Pastry — the “Danish,” stop by beloved bakery in Christianshavn
Vor Frelsers church, climb striking spiral spire for view including Christiania
Christiania squatter community, with local guide, talk about the hippie ideals of this experimental community
Nazi Resistance museum, free spirit showed itself vs. Hitler too
Amalienborg, changing of guard, today treasures its freedom…no euro?
Tivoli, colorful amusement park, close with midnight fireworks
And then I say, “Thanks for joining us. I’m Rick Steves. Until next time…keep on travelin’.”
Well at least if you are going in April they will have had a chance to clean up the city from the riots going on over there right now. All I could find about the precipitating factors was… “Scores of cars and several schools have been vandalized or burned in the past week. Police could give no reason, but said that unusually mild weather and the closure of schools for a winter break might have contributed. Police arrested two Tunisians and a Dane of Moroccan descent on Tuesday for planning to kill a cartoonist who drew one of the cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper two years ago that roused a storm of protest in Muslim countries.” What is with the younger generation…Europe gets rebuilt after being razed by the Nazi’s and now the younger generation wants to destroy it again for no good reason…go figure.
The reason for the rioting may be because 15 Danish newspapers reprinted the offending cartoons last Wednesday to demonstrate their commitment to protect free speech.
If you are going to Rome today please post something on it, we are leaving in 6 weeks! This will be our second time in Italy, last was in 2002 so I know things have changed.
Oh Judy, ==== the beauty of travel in Europe is that almost nothing of interest (to my Sweetie and I, at least) has changed for centuries. For example, Rome’s Colosseum was built between 69 and 80 AD; da Vinci finished the “Last Supper†in 1497; an amphitheater was constructed in Nimes, France in 50 AD; Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris was completed in about 1345. So by the time of our last trip to Europe in 1995, about the only thing of interest to us that had changed since our first visit in 1970, was the removal of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, and the beginning of the restoration of Dresden, Germany. Italy is mountainous to the extreme, with hundreds, if not thousands of tiny villages clambering the mountainsides, some reached on narrow twisty roads, some so isolated we never found an access road, and hundreds more that were marvelous and delightful as we drove past. When you get back from your trip, please post a comment of things of value that have changed in just a couple of years. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. Of course there have been new McDonald’s built in Rome, but who cares! We have been to Italy 8 times, and find it fascinating beyond our expectations.
Thanks for answering my question, Rick. I look forward to seeing the new Copenhagen show… and seeing all the new shows… and going to Copenhagen myself within the next few years. I guess you can consider your job well done if us viewers see your television show and immediately start mentally planning our own trips.
Rick, I had thoughts similar to KathyM. With all the riots going on there, it is interesting that you have these posts up about Copenhagen. While not part of your shows of course, maybe your blog entries could talk a little bit more about what is going on there from an insider perspective as you talk to some of your tour guides about what is going on there right now.
And then I say, “Thanks for joining us. I’m Rick Steves. Until next time…keep on travelin’.” Rick, how about end it look you do in another countries with a Danish goodbye – Hei hei or farvel?
Maybe I missed it, but are you visiting Legoland? I always wanted to go there, and would be interested in what you have to say about it!
Oh my, even I, HUMBERD-IAN, think I have posted too many comments on Ricks blog. But I just can’t resist Ellen’s question, even though I know it was directed to Rick. == One Sunday morning, as we sailed from Sweden to Denmark on a Swedish ferryboat, they had a 15 piece live band to entertain the passengers. There was another four or five piece band and a group of young girls singing beautiful familiar hymns. The man (with his wife) at the next table, at breakfast, was the sales manager for the Lego Toy Company. Sweetie had heard of Lego toys, so with his encouragement, we later visited Legoland, the Lego Company’s version of Disneyland, in Billund, Denmark. (1985) It’s a miniature city, somewhat like Madurodam at The Hague, Netherlands, and Swissminiatur, the museum of scale-model buildings found in the Swiss town of Melide. At Legoland they have small versions of the Taj Mahal, Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen, the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the US Capitol building, and many, many more, all built with Lego blocks. It was really an enjoyable few hours.
Hi, Rick! I like the script as you have it for Copenhagen. Good luck on filming the new shows. I shall have my eyes peeled for that bunsathing park by the castle. :)
I have read several reports now linking the rioting to the Muslim comic strip which prompted me to research a little further. I was suprised to come up with an article about the problem that Oxford is having with Muslims and Christians. What is so startling to me is that people in Europe are very upfront and in your face about how they feel about the Muslim religion where here in the US it woudl never be allowed to speak out as openly against the Muslims as they do in Europe. Check out the article on the problems in Oxford it is quite interesting…http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/02/nmosque102.xml In addition to this topic they are also fighting a Muslim request to make their law part and parcel with English law and that when a Muslim is tried for a crime or there is a civil matter involved a Muslim would be tried in a special Muslim court not subject to English law.
kathyM, thanks for sharing that. I have to agree with you about the differences in how the US and Euopre handle Muslims. For Europe, I think they face a different level of this than we face as many Muslims immigrate to Europe directly from hard lined Islamic governments. So Muslims go from one extreme culture and expect the exact same lifestyle and culture to be in place when they move to Europe. And I think this is completely wrong. Americans get a bad rap for being so ehtnocentric (so to speak) and expecting everywhere else to be like America. And many Muslims are far worse in their behavior as they expect wherever they go to adapt to their laws and customs. Here in America, it is so different. If people want to come here and practice Islam, so be it. However, there doesn’t seem to be that push here to make Islamic culture and law part of America. Maybe America has established its own identity that people are aware of what they are coming to when they get here – land of the free, a melting pot, our freedoms and capitalist society where everyone can achieve their dream. Maybe there isn’t the freedom for Muslims to come to the US from more hard lined countries while there is in Europe. Or maybe more hard lined Muslims don’t care to come to the US but will immigrate to Europe. And therefore, you have more extreme conflicts of hard Muslim law and free, European culture and society (which is even more extreme than the US). It seems Muslim culture for those coming from Islamic govts is in sharp contrast to European govt which is not guided as much by morals and religion (which we still seem to have here in the US). And therefore, conflict is bound to happen.
Jeremy your post was extraordinarily insightful and sent me researching and I found an article albeit from 2002 The Many Faces of Islam that addressed alot of what you were saying http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901021216-397459,00.html. I recently represented an AmericanArab Muslim in his divorce and we had to try the case using both Islamic principles and American law which made for quite an interesting case. Experts were flown in from New Jersey and Chicago and it just left the Judge (who was already hostile to the whole Islamic law issue) more perplexed then when we started. From doing my little research it seems France, the UK and the Netherlands are the hardest hit with Muslim immigration and I wonder if that has to do with the fact that some of the countries people are emigrating from use to be colonies of these countries and the host country must let them in and accomodate them or it is just that now that there are open borders they emigrate to the richest countries hoping to avail themself of the social services of the new host country. The whole Oxford fracus over ringing the church bell and Muslim calling to worship really has those people stirred up and the Brits are pretty verbal and ugly about it. And then we have the debate of incorpating Shari law with the British system of law which sent them all into a tailspin which I can totally get behind, learning and living with one set of laws is hard enough at times but two sets….I think your point about hard line Muslims being more in Europe is correct and that is why they are having such a hard time controling the situation, especially in England. Great post…thanks for your response.
humdinger – looking forward to the broadcast (and the outtakes!) – many thanks
Hi Rick – I’m an ex-pat American living in CPH. Enjoyed reading your script- it’s a good overview of CPH. You might consider a trip to the Danish Design Center, if time allows. If you are looking for a landmark that concisely sums the Danish attitude and culture (and is squarely inline with Janteloven), I suggest the Carlsberg sign across form the Town Hall Square, which does not proclaim “The best beer in town”, not even “Probably the best beer in the world”, rather, the very Danish: “Probably the best beer in town”. Cheers! Keep up the good work!