Ugles

After all the furore of the Royal Wedding on Friday (which we watched on BBC World News - loved the dress Kate!), a visit to something calming and restorative was in order, so we ventured out to Louisiana, this time to take Granny who is visiting for a few days and hasn't been here before...

There is currently a huge Picasso Exhibition here that stretches over 3 floors, with hundreds of his paintings, but my favourite piece was his little Ceramic Owl (or Ugle in Danish!), and I think he would look perfect on our fireplace! David Hockney also currently has an exhibition here called "Me Draw On Ipad", which I really wanted to hate, as I am not much of an Apple Fan (to put it mildly), but some of the artwork (shown on ipads displayed around a darkened room) was surprisingly beautiful, and I have to admit it's an interesting medium even if you are not going to get the same results if you print the pictures off...

The children's favourite piece of the day was a light installation by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama called Gleaming Light of the Souls, involving a small room with hundreds of constantly changing coloured lights, water and mirrors. Once I had managed to get S to to sit down on the floor and watch the changing colours, and not fall in the water, I loved it too, it is both beautiful and mesmerising.
Too much artwork viewing for small people must be rewarded with time at the Children's Wing of course, (which is the most incredible place for kids as I have said before), and this time they were encouraged to make their own Ugle's from giant mounds of clay, and have a go at drawing Picasso inspired still life with pastel crayons... Help and encouragement is always on hand here from the enthusiastic studio staff (although it looks like the biggest room on the ground floor will be shut for a while due to a flood)...

All the sculpting proved to be thirsty work, so it was time for tea outside in the sun where we watched a couple of hardy swimmers braving the sea below, whilst stuffing our faces with sinful Kartoffelkage (choux pastry filled with cream, a marzipan layer on top covered in cocoa powder, and called this because of the shape, not because they contain potatoes! The lovely Kitty at These Sublime Days actually made these recently if you feel brave enough to give them a go!) and chocolate Sandra Bernhardt cakes (a squat chocolate cone with chocolate mousse innards, a macaroon base, and an almond on top - thus called after the French actress, not Madonna's friend Sandra Bernhard by the way...).

Afterwards we decided to walk around the beautiful grounds and ventured around the back of the museum, where earlier Granny had spotted a huge slide(!). R&S spent what seemed like a good hour enjoying it all to themselves as I am not sure many people know it's here!...

Fish and chips on the way home at Rungsted, Friday night English supper style, and a spot of crab fishing afterwards (they didn't appear to like bacon or pasta this time either), for a perfect start to the weekend makes!...

Dead Drunk Danes & Other Day Trips...

We wanted to take my Sister and Fiance to a few places we haven't been before, so we went to Gilleleje last weekend, a tiny old fishing port on the North Coast. It's very picturesque, and I imagine it's even more so in the summer, but on this trip we didn't hang around outside for long - the wind chill factor meant we had to bid a hasty retreat into the closest restaurant, as it felt like our ears were going to drop off! We had a nice lunch at Far Til 4 and introduced my sister and her other half to some more traditional Danish fare...

On Sunday we went to the Vikinge Skib Museet in Roskilde. This place is definitely worth a visit, as is Roskilde; one of the oldest cities in Denmark. If you have time, you should not only visit the museum, but the huge Cathedral nearby (where the Kings and Queens of Denmark are buried) and the City itself. The day we visited was very atmospheric as a thick mist hung over the Fjord, serving as a fitting backdrop to the skeletons of these huge beautiful ships. It took 30 years to restore them back to this state and it gives you a real insight into Viking life.

During the week we also went to Louisiana , where this time I actually had time to look at some of the collections rather than going straight to the Children's wing... There's some great stuff here, I loved the fabulously named "Dead Drunk Danes" by Danish artist Asger Jorn. As an abstract painting it's hard to decipher whether it was a self-portrait or not, but the title won it for me! There's currently a great temporary exhibition (running until March 2011) by American Artist Walton Ford, (no pics allowed due to copyright issues, got very nicely told off for just having a camera around my neck!), but you can get the gist of his stuff here. There's also a collection of a series of paintings of female pilots from the Second World War. Information about the (pretty much unknown) role that each woman played is given underneath. As you walk through the hall, the noise of old aircraft plays in the background which is effective and strangely moving. After all this appreciation, it was time for lunch in the fantastic cafe that overlooks the sea. This Christianshavn Kager made me eat it, probably because it was quite possibly the nicest cake I have had here (so far)...! My grandparents visited Louisiana in the 1960's when they did a house-swap with a Danish family. It was funny to think they probably stood looking at the same Giacommetti's as I did. They were over when the moon-landing took place, which made it especially memorable to them as they didn't have a TV at home at the time - but the Danish family did! Poor Danish family, they had to knock on a neighbour's door in order to watch it. They were also asked to look after an undulator, which they agreed to, not having a clue what it was, and wondering whether it was a boiler or other machine that needed looking after, it turned out to be one of these....

Yesterday we woke up to our first snow of the winter which was nice for our guests - it was officially the first time my nephew has ever seen white stuff! It didn't settle in the centre of town, but we still have a covering in the garden. It does seem quite soon though!!

We said a sad goodbye to our guests this morning, it was so lovely to have them here. I miss being around the corner from both of my sisters, so any time we spend together is special at the moment. We managed to cram in a night out though - my sister's first night out alone since she had the baby. We went to Ruby to celebrate her engagement with a quick cocktail (the Carrot Cake Cocktail is highly recommended), then onto Mikkeller to meet some friends. The children loved having them here too and relished the time spent "looking after" their baby cousin (which included giving him his first unsolicited chip much to my sister's horror!). I am not sure they enjoyed the aborted landing at Gatwick due to another plane being on the runway, nor some of their luggage going missing, but all in all a great time was had by all. It seems so quiet here now! Time to regroup and get back into our "normal" routine before our next guests in three weeks time.

Louisiana...

Last Friday, as planned we went to Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. As Thursday was a holiday here, most Danes had the Friday off too, and it soon became apparent that they were all at Louisiana...! I think it was the first real queue I have seen in our 8 months here, but then it is supposed to be the most visited art gallery in Denmark...! It's named after the three wives of the the first person to own the Property, any guesses as to what they were all called? It's situated in Humlebæk, a town 35km North of Copenhagen, which is a pleasant drive along a coast road, except that we got stuck behind the slowest driver in the world for most of the journey (coincidentally also Louisiana bound!). This made it seem like it was miles away, so we were definitely joining that long queue and not turning back home. Some of the exhibits here are incredibly famous, and I will investigate them properly next time, but the main purpose of this visit was to go to the Children's section. This covers three floors, the top floor was (on this occasion) dedicated to paper and wire sculptures, with a quiet reflection/reading room nearby. The middle floor is for drawing, with trays and of paper and pencils and chalks, plus a little room full of lego, and bottom floor is the painting and clay section.

The whole wing was surpringly quiet and peaceful (compared to the rest of the museum), and both children spent a couple of hours working on various creations! I thought it was really nice that staff are on hand to give advice to the budding artists(and clear up any spillages!). We left earlier than R had hoped (rather earlier than I had hoped too but S had obviously exerted himself creatively and was too hungry and tired to continue!), so I then had to navigate two small children back through the hoards, whilst at the same time balancing dripping paintings and two very wet clay models on top of my handbag... Luckily both clay pieces also survived intact on the journey home, and are currently drying out (still, it's almost been a week!). R's is entitled "Jug-Cup", whilst S's is rather descriptively called "Boat" . I think we will be coming here quite a bit, it stays open until 10pm most days, plus there are lots of different events taking place. Next time we visit though we will make sure we pick a quieter time to actually see some art though!...

On Sunday we drove West to Frederikksund, and then on to to Kulhuse, which is on a peninsuala right at the mouth of Roskilde Fjord. It was so peaceful and quiet it was almost unnerving as there are very few places nowadways when you can literally hear nothing else, plus the beach was deserted, time for another picnic in the cold! I think all that fresh air wore somebody out though... (this is waiting to pick his big sister up from school the following day!).