July 7, 2018 - “Kun dode fisk flyder med strommen”. -
(Only dead fish swim with the current) - the local slogan for Christiania.
We visited two different ‘Fantasy Lands’ of sorts today. The first is featured below. In 1971 some 700 Danes established squatters rights in an abandoned barracks near the parliament building. The result was a hippie enclave known as “The Freetown of Christiania”. This is a ramshackle mishmash of idealists , potheads, and non materialists. The crazy thing is over time it has become the 2nd most visited place on Copenhagen after Tivoli Gardens.
When we visited there were these little booths lining “Pusher Street” - the main drag. Here they were selling marijuana directly to tourists. I assumed it was legal. It is not. Everyone one of these guys were dressed in black with gloves and sun glasses. They were not friendly or chatty.
While we were there the police walked thru and all of these guys grabbed their stash and fled like a Danish scene of ‘The Wire’. Despite the bohemian chic of the place it definitely had a sticky underside to it. I decided I would make a bad hippie.
After we left Christiania “Freetown” we learned a little more. The guys in black selling Hashish and Pot are in fact gang members. Hence the dress code I suppose. The sweet notion of Seth Rogan selling you a joint is gone. Violence has increased here now as turf wars heat up. So the police are cracking down more than in the past. So all of the tourists in the area were unwillingly cast as extras in ‘Law and Order - Copenhagen “.
The second ‘Fantasy Land’ was the charming Tivoli Gardens. This is the world’s oldest amusement park and is said to have inspired Walt Disney. It is a quaint 20 acres in the middle of the city. Mostly gentle rides and shady gardens
Some images from Tivoli Gardens -
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