Fejø Frugt - the fruit sellers from Fejø 2022

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Fruit sellers from Fejø come to Nyhavn every Autumn to sell their freshly-harvested pears, apples and plums on the quayside. They also have fruit juice, plum marmelade and fruit vinegar from the island and they are more than happy to let you taste the fruit and to answer questions about their orchards and about the fruit they produce.

All the fruit is fantastic but, in particular, it’s the Clara pears that that seem to me to epitomise all that is distinct and best about Danish seasonal food They are a distinct, almost luminous green and are crisp with plenty of juice and are good as an easy snack or with cheese. I can’t remember ever seeing them in England and they are seen here in Denmark only at this time of year.

The boats and the fruit sellers are in Nyhavn from today and through to Sunday 11 September 2022.

Frugten fra Fejø

 

high water in the harbour

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Even without looking out of the window, living on Nyhavn, I know when the level of the water in the harbour is high because I can hear the engines of the tourists boats turning over as they stop at a small landing stage at Nyhavnsbroen, for people to get on and off, rather than going on under the bridge to their main landing stage at the inner end of Nyhavn at Kongens Nytorv.

Most of the boats have windscreens to shield the skipper but these are hinged to drop down to gain a few inches to get under the bridge and, through the summer, my days are punctuated by tannoy announcements from the guides trying to make passengers sit down as the boat goes under Nyhavnsbroen. I’ve never seen a tourist’s head floating in the harbour but it would give them a great if final selfie.

On Sunday the water in Nyhavn was at the highest level I have seen since I moved here …. about 1.5 metres above its normal level and just 60cm below the level of the quay.

Such a high water level was caused by storms over Denmark on Saturday. Named Storm Malik by Danmarks Meteorolgiske Institut, it forced water from the North Sea against the west coast and caused water to rise between the islands so effecting Limfjorden, Roskilde Fjord, and, to a lesser extent, Copenhagen.

It sounds dramatic but there had been good, early and accurate warnings so vulnerable areas prepared with sand bags and booms and here boat owners adjusted moorings and checked service pipes to and from their boats.

Of course, people were out on Sunday morning because they were curious but Copenhageners, like city people the World over, are pretty nonchalant about these things …. or, at least, can feign nonchalance. When I told a neighbour that this was the highest I have seen water in the harbour, he sniffed and said in his 55 years of working and living around Nyhavn, he had seen the water much, much, much higher.

Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut - Storm Malik

water lapping over the lower level of the quay at Gammel Strand

looking down at Nyhavnsbroen - the bridge across Nyhavn - at about 10am on Sunday. With the water this high, it would be difficult to get a raft let alone a tourist boat under the bridge to get to the inner end of Nyhavn at Kongens Nytorv

the water level at Nyhavnsbroen on Sunday at about 10am …. the water level had already dropped by about 20 cm - as shown by the tide mark - because when the water was at it’s highest point, the arched opening was completely submerged

update:
24 hours later - at about 10am on Monday - the water level had dropped by 1.6 metres and, if anything, is lower than normal

the warehouses at the end of Nyhavn and Skuespilhuset / The National Theatre from the inner harbour bridge around lunchtime on Sunday when the level of water in the inner harbour had already dropped

the main canal through Christianshavn where the quay is not at a constant level and, at one of the lowest points, the road was just 20 cm above the water
this sounds dramatic but, of course, if the water had risen above the edge of the quay then, as the area of flooding increases, then increasingly large amounts of water would be needed to raise the level

of course, that does happen but, more often, the problem is that, as the level of water in the harbour rises, storm drains that clear water from the street, fail and drains and sewers back up

 

why the city has to prepare for rising sea levels

This weekend, Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut classed Storm Malik as level two on their scale with the highest storm level being four.

The storm drove water from the Sound into the harbour and when you look at the area of the inner harbour then the amount of water here was certainly impressive - amazing even - but not dramatic for there was little flooding.

But storm surges will become more of a problem as sea levels rise because of climate change and could become a dangerous and expensive catastrophe if storm surges or high levels of water in the Sound and in the harbour coincide with heavy rain over the city. To put it simply, that is when water running of the land meets water flooding in.

Cloud bursts here are dramatic with a cloud burst defined as 15cm or more of rain falling within 30 minutes so the policy now is to control and contain surface water so that it can be released into the harbour once water levels drop. There are now also plans for raising sea defences including the construction of a tidal barrier that could be raised to block the entrance to the harbour in the event of a storm like Malik.

also see:
Sankt Kjelds Plads - climate change landscape
climate change and sustainability in Denmark?
Enghave Parken - restoration and climate change mitigation
climate change - Scandiagade

This is Christians Brygge where it goes under Knippelsbro - the bridge at the centre of the inner harbour that links the historic centre to Christianshavn and Amager. This road along the quay is a main route into the city from the south. The water was just shallow enough to drive through although unfortunate for cyclists caught by the spray and the wake from cars.

It was difficult to judge (I did not have a tape measure with me) but this flooding appears to be above the level of the water in the harbour so may well have been caused by the water in the harbour rising and blocking drains- The level of the road surface cannot be raised because the construction of the historic bridge has a shallow arch which is an integral part of the construction and already limits the height of traffic …. hence the warning lights and red and white striped warning sign.

The prediction is that, by 2070, sea levels could rise by 50cm and this map, from Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut, shows the parts of the city that would be flooded should there be a storm surge of 1.9 metres on top of that …. the rise in level this weekend was about 1.6 metres in the harbour and was, I think, rated as a once in 20 year event

The map shows the roads under the harbour bridges flooded; water over the quay in Nyhavn; Ofelia Plads and the harbour end of Sankt Annæ Plads flooded. More important, extensive areas of Christianshavn and the whole of Christiania would be under water. The outer defences of Christianshavn would overflow, including possibly covering the road between Christianshavn and Amager.

Kløvermarken - the large area of park south of the old defence and here shaped rather like a grand piano - would be under water. This is significant because plans to build housing across Kløvermarken are back on the planners’ agenda. Maybe a fact-finding trip to Chiloe in Chile might be useful to look at ways of building houses on stilts! Or maybe, just maybe, leaving Kløvermarken as an open green space for sports might be an easier if less profitable option.

Inderhavnsbroen / the inner harbour bridge

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Inderhavnsbroen - the inner harbour bridge for pedestrians and bikes that crosses from Nyhavn to Christianshavn - opened in the summer of 2016.

It provides an important and fast link between the old city, on the west side of the harbour, and Christianshavn, Christiania, Holmen and the opera house on the east side of the harbour.

Until the completion of the bridge, the simple way to cross the harbour was to use the ferry between the Skuespilhuset - the National Theatre - and the opera house - a distance of about 600 metres door to door by foot and boat.

To walk or to ride a bike from the theatre to the opera house without using the ferry meant going down to Knippelsbro and then back up to Holmen - a distance of just over 3 kilometres.

With the Inner Harbour Bridge and the new three-way Transgravsbroen, it is still 1,500 metres from the door of the theatre to the door of the opera house.

By car it was even further. When I first moved to Copenhagen, cars could not drive over the bridge from Christianshavn to Holmen so the route meant driving over to Amager and then across the north side Kløvermarken and up to the causeway at Minebådsgraven and from there to Holmen and the Opera House ..... a distance of well over 6 kilometres.

Inderhavnsbroen was designed by the English engineers Flint & Neill who are now a subsidiary of the Danish engineering group COWI.

It has been nicknamed the Kissing Bridge because of the unusual way that it opens and closes to let large ships move up and down the harbour.

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Inderhavnsbroen from the south …. Havngade and then Nyhavn are to the left and on the right is Nordatlantens Brygge - the warehouse on the east or Christianshavn side of the harbour
the cranes are for new apartment buildings on Papirøen

 
 

the bridge from the east or Christianshavn side looking up Nyhavn towards Kongens Nytorv

the bridge from the east with Nyhavn beyond with the centre sections open for a ship to come through

 

fruit from Fejø

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This morning two sailing ships came into the harbour loaded with boxes of fruit from Fejø.

Each year in September, immediately after the main harvest, growers from the island bring their fruit into Copenhagen with boxes of pears, apples and plums, and with several different varieties of each, to sell from the quayside of Nyhavn.

They have docked above the bridge, just where Lille Strandstræde comes into Nyhavn, so they are close, appropriately, to the house of the 18th-century sugar merchant Ludvig Ferdinand Rømer who imported raw sugar from the West Indies to be refined in his sugar works in the yard behind the house.

The arrival of the Fejø fruit growers gives a sense of what the harbour must have been like in the 18th and 19th century when citizens would have heard rumours about which ships had returned and would have come down to see the cargo they carried.

The growers from Fejø will be selling their fruit from the quayside in Nyhavn everyday through to Sunday 12 September.

 

Beach Volleyball on the harbour quay

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This weekend - on Friday 13, Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 August - there is a beach volleyball competition on the quay on the city side of the harbour. It’s at the corner of Nyhavn - where the inner harbour bridge crosses over to Christianshavn - and a temporary court and a stand have been set up specifically for the event.

This is yet another good example of how much the citizens of Copenhagen make use of public urban spaces for major events outside.

Christmas lights on the Hotel d'Angleterre

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In the run up to Christmas, a key event in the city is the turning on of the light display across the front of the Hotel d' Angleterre on Kongens Nytorv. Over the years, the displays have been elaborate, often with a central tableau with giant figures from tales by Hans Christian Andersen.

When the lights are turned on for the first time, it is quite an occasion for families who, after the lights come on, can go to a Christmas market set out around the west and north side of the square as a link from the end of Strøget - The Walking Street - across the front of the hotel and on round to the end of Nyhavn where more stalls selling food and gifts and decorations continue down the quay on the north side of the harbour.

But not this year.

With the threat of infection with Coronavirus if there were to be large, tightly packed crowds, the Christmas fair has been cancelled and the lights have been toned down and with no big evening for switching on.

There are Christmas lights across the department store - Magasin du Nord - and on the front of the theatre but it will be a quieter, rather more muted Christmas in Copenhagen this year.

 

the north quay of Nyhavn looking towards Kongens Nytorv with lights but, for this year, no Christmas market

looking across the south side of Kongens Nytorv with the entrance to the theatre the department store Magasin du Nord

 

unlocking the locks in the lockdown … or, probably, just cutting them off

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then ……

….. and now

 

The city is repairing and repainting the bridge at the centre of Nyhavn and, in preparation, all the padlocks attached to the railings will be removed. According to the newspaper Politiken there are or, as the locks on the railings on one side have gone already, there were over 5,000 locks. Apparently, the locks removed will be retained for a while, if any couples want to retrieve their locks, but any left unclaimed will be incorporated in an art work.

Theses locks are now such a problem that, after the repair work is finished, attaching locks to this bridge will not be allowed.

I've always wondered if these people throw the key into the harbour after fixing the lock to the railings …… well to be honest - what I wonder is why people still do this.

For the first couple - whoever they were and where ever they were - attaching that first lock to some bridge somewhere, was an imaginative and, I guess, a romantic gesture. But being just one couple of 5,000 - and that’s just here on this bridge in Nyhavn - then it's a bit like telling someone that you love them so much that you would do anything for them and go to any lengths to prove your love so you've been down to the nearest garage and got a bunch of flowers from the bucket outside.

I can't remember seeing anyone here down on one knee to propose so it can't be that a lock on this bridge marks a specific link to this specific place and a specific romantic event.

Do the Casanovas of today buy these locks in bulk or do they sneak back with a spare key and retrieve the lock for the next conquest?

Nyhavn

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Recently, while doing research for a number of posts on buildings around Råshuspladsen, I’ve been using the vast collection of historic photographs from the city archive that are now available on line and, although not actually looking for it, I came across this photograph of Nyhavn … a photograph of the view from the ‘new’ harbour looking towards the more open water of the main harbour.

It was taken sometime after 1900 and probably before 1910 and for me it sums up what is so fantastic about Nyhavn and about the survival of so many major historic buildings along the quays on either side.

For over 200 years, this part of the city was at the heart of commercial trade with merchants living here and with warehouses and workshops that continued to thrive even when, from the end of the 18th century and through the 19th century, they were superseded by the larger warehouses of Christianshavn and Larsens Plads and the line of large brick warehouses between Amalienborg and the harbour.

In the book Historiske Huse in det gamle København, published by the National Museum in 1972, forty four buildings in Nyhavn are included with short summaries of their date; their builder (if recorded) and with details about important later owners. Despite alterations, most of the buildings on the north side, date back, at least in part, to the construction of the harbour in the 1680s. On the south side was the palace of Charlottenborg, that survives, and then further down the harbour buildings from the naval dockyard and the first botanical gardens. It was only in the middle of 19th century that the larger apartment buildings along the quay below the bridge on the south side were constructed.

The photograph shows that the ships moored here - designed and constructed for specific cargoes or different trading routes - were as beautiful and as amazing as the buildings. And, of course, it was the ships that generated the income that provided the money to build and then later to improve the houses as the wealth of the city merchants increased and as tastes and styles and fashions changed.

Some will argue that the harbour has been swamped by it’s own success and has been or will be destroyed by the ever-larger numbers of tourists and the restaurants that are here to serve them but, of course, some will argue that it is only the income from tourism that now means the buildings can be maintained and that they now have a valid role.

The important thing is that they do survive and that they are well maintained not just as exteriors, so simply as a backdrop, but rather as incredibly important historic buildings and interiors that contain the physical and tangible evidence for how people in the city lived and worked and traded and the evidence to show how and why they were successful.

 

Nyhavn - what a difference a year and a virus makes

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last summer ……

…… and this summer with the city in lockdown

and a slightly lighter note …. when it comes to important things in life, people don’t change much. Who can resist leaning on the railings or the parapet of a bridge to stare at the water?

The lads fishing from the north bridge over the moat at Kastellet is a detail of a painting by Christen Købke from 1834 and is now in the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. The stance of the boy in pale trousers fishing and the pose of the girl in jeans and both with remarkably similar short jackets seems like a link through the decades between them.

 

Nyhavn ….. dining ships or have the tourist restaurants had their chips?

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Recently, it has been suggested that consent should be given so restaurant ships can be moored in Nyhavn but it was not clear if that meant, in effect, extensions out onto the water from the existing restaurants and their kitchens or new and separate businesses.

How could the services such as power and waste disposal work and would the ships have toilets or would diners use toilets in the buildings and would this all be along the north quay or along both sides?

It strikes me as trying to wring every last kroner of profit out of the harbour that is already under pressure.

I’ve eaten several times at the Færge Cafe in Christianshavn. They have a boat, moored just on the quay there by the bridge, as an additional space for their dining room, and that is very good and very pleasant but in part that has ben allowed because there is no space for tables on the quay itself and, anyway, just because someone else has done it and been successful, that should not be grounds for planning consent for the same anywhere and everywhere.

If any quay has the space for more restaurants on the water then it might be Kalvebod Brygge - down from Langebro - and could be part of the proposed policy to persuade tourists to try areas other than the obvious ones but even there it would have to be through a specific and well argued application.

life in Copenhagen

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7am yesterday
normally the quay would be crowded with people heading into the centre to work

7pm yesterday evening
normally the quay would be crowded with people heading home from work, and with people heading into the city for the evening or with tourists and citizens either just walking and taking advantage of the pleasant Spring evening or heading for one of the restaurants on Nyhavn

 

The city is in lockdown and everything has changed so much and so quickly.

The restaurants of Nyhavn have shut and outside them the chairs and tables are under tarpaulins or packed away. Looking out from my window this morning there was a cormorant diving and hunting for food - undisturbed and unperturbed.

With the publication of the World Happiness Report a few days ago, there is an awful irony about the timing when most people in most countries in the World now face a crisis as we are confronted by the impact of a viral epidemic that has changed the way we live and, inevitably, will challenge what we see as the real priorities for our lives in the future.

 

social isolation - Nyhavn style

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note what looks like a Dursley-Pedersen out in the wild

Dursley-Pedersen cykel - Designmuseum Danmark

 

climate change and rising sea levels

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If there is a sudden rain storm In Copenhagen and, within an hour, streets are flooded and businesses are closed and transport is disrupted, then the consequences from climate change seem obvious and imminent. Problems are here and are now so, for politicians, planners, voters and tax payers, the need to act and act now is easy to understand.

But rising sea levels are more difficult.

For a start, the time scale is longer. People still talk about dealing with once-in-a-hundred-year storms … perversely trying to persuade themselves that means it will not happen for a hundred years when a catastrophic storm tomorrow could still, strictly, be once in a hundred years if it's then 99 years until the next one.

Statistics and the data seem much less certain for the rise in sea levels but how can we expect scientists to be any more precise with predictions when these changes are on such an enormous scale and there are so many variables - not least when it comes to calculating a tipping point as sea ice or glaciers melt?

But for Denmark, these calculations and planning now for works for mitigation are crucial.

On one side of the weighing scales, for policy makers and planners, are some positives: Denmark is a relatively small and relatively prosperous country with a strong history of major and successful engineering projects and with a population that still appreciates and understands the role of the state in major interventions for general gains. But, on the other side of those scales, Denmark is a low-lying country with an astonishing number of islands and a coast line that, as a consequence, is said to be about 7,300 kilometres in length. Is it a case of too much to do and too little time?

 
 

Living now on Nyhavn I'm very aware of the levels of the water in the harbour as the tide rises and falls each day. It might not be as dramatic or by as much as on the west coast - where settlements face out to the North Sea and its weather - but still the level of the water in the harbour rises by as much as a metre from the lowest to the highest level through each day. There is a fixed measure on the bridge across the middle of the harbour that I can see from my desk … or, to be completely honest, there is a height marker I can see from my desk if I stand up …. and I can also hear when the tour boats stop just before the bridge to drop off and pick up passengers if the tide is too high for the boats to get under the bridge to reach the ticket office and landing stage at the top of the harbour.

The quayside here is just 1.5 metres above the level of the sea water at high tide …. so, to put it the other way round, the sea is just 1.5 metres below my front door.

The highest tidal surge out in the sound - sea water driven by winds or storms - was apparently three metres in 1872 although there seems to be no record of floods and damage in the city that year as a consequence. Complete official records date back only to 1890.

There was a surge of 1.57 metres in 1921 and the highest surge of sea water from a storm recently was on 19 January 2007 when the water level rose by 1.31 metres. I've looked at back copies of Politken for that weekend but, curiously, there seem to be no reports of flooding or damage in the city with just one report about the harbour that weekend that has a photograph of a huge number of bikes that had been hoiked out of the canal around Christiansborg as part of a clean-up campaign.

But then add the height of a possible storm surge to the higher level of the sea because of global warming and melting of polar and Greenland ice and you can see why the city has to make major decisions now about what has to be done.

Calculations have suggested that, between now and 2050, sea level in the sound will rise between 10 centimetres and 30 centimetres and by the end of the century - so only 80 years away - the rise in sea level here will be between 20 centimetres and 1.6 metres with a 5% chance the rise will be over 2 metres. The median figure for the rise in sea level for Copenhagen is 70 centimetres and that could mean water lapping over the quay at high tide.

The only thing that is certain, is that I won't be here eighty years from now but, in a worst-case scenario, the sea will be at the front door of this building and that is without worrying about storms.

The whole of Christianshavn was built up out of the sea in the 17th century and looking at historic maps it is clear that the outer part of Nyhavn was built out way beyond the line of the beach.

I have read somewhere that the crown sold off areas of the sea bed and it was up to new owners to drive in wooden piles and fill in and create a plot for their buildings. Whether or not that is true, I wonder how much rising water levels will effect foundations. There is remarkably little visual evidence for subsidence but what will happen as the water table rises? And, more important, whatever work is considered to protect the city from flooding, major engineering interventions will change, and change permanently, the character of the inner harbour and the beaches and low-lying land of Amager - the island immediately to the south of the city.

 

 

Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.

Last year - in September 2019 - the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published their Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.

Produced by more than 100 climate and marine scientists from 36 countries, this report assesses how global warming is having an impact on sea levels as sea ice melts and uses clear research data to calculate the potential extent of change and the rate of change.

Through the 20th century, sea levels rose by 15 centimetres (6 inches) but as global warming is causing ice in glaciers and in the Arctic and Antarctic sea to melt at twice that rate then calculations indicate that by the end of the century, so by 2100, sea levels will rise by an additional 10 centimetres so between 61 centimetres and 1.1 metres and if the Arctic ice sheets melt faster than current predictions suggest, then, by 2100, sea levels could rise by 2 metres.

Small glaciers are expected to lose more than 80% of current ice mass and that would have a severe impact on supplies of drinking water and consistent supplies of water to rivers for irrigation. With flooding of coastal areas and the impact on coastal cities and on densely populated delta areas then changes to sea level will dramatically reshape "all aspects of society."

The report can be read on line and the separate sections downloaded.

these are:

Summary for Policymakers
Technical Summary
Framing and Context of the report
High Mountain Areas
Polar Regions
Sea Level Rise and Implications for Low-Lying Islands, Coasts and Communities
Changing Ocean, Marine Ecosystems and Dependent Communities
Extreme, Abrupt Changes and Managing Risks
Integrative Cross-Chapter Box on Low-lying Islands and Coasts

 
 

waste collection on Nyhavn

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The photograph of rubbish piled around a street bin - posted with a quotation from Paul Mazur on Black Friday - was actually taken on the morning of Black Friday.

I had planned to post the quote because it seemed appropriate for this odd day that was contrived by marketing men in the States to make people spend. It’s the day after Thanksgiving - that public holiday when you spend time with families rather than spend money shopping - so presumably Black Friday is the bargain sale to hook you back into spending, just in case you forgot how spend having just had a day off. Is the message here that if you buy something you don't need then at least buy it at a knock-down price? Or maybe if you don't actually need it then by offering it at a sale price you might be persuaded to change your mind.

Anyway, I was heading out to take a photograph at the recycle centre on Amager - to go with the quote - but then there was this on the quay right outside my front door.

Everything had been abandoned - including a large and fairly new suitcase along with a good small metal case and various pictures in frames - so it looked as if someone is moving on from one of the apartments around here and what they were not taking with them had been dumped on the pavement sometime during the night. At least it gave me as good an image as any to represent our throw-away society.

In any case, the bin system here is of interest and I had been thinking about a post for some time. It might look like an ordinary street bin but it's one of a line of bins along the quay that are the above-ground part of a sophisticated waste system from ENVAC.

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Sankt Hans Aften

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Sankt Hans Aften is the celebrations on the evening before the Feast Day of St John the Baptist and, close to the summer solstice and the longest day, is also linked with more ancient legends and beliefs for this is the evening when witches fly to the Broken or Bloksberg in the Harz Mountains - a story that inspired the music known as Night on a Bare Mountain that was composed by Mussirgsky with a later orchestral version by Rimsky-Korsakov.

In Denmark the celebrations open with traditional songs before the bonfire are lit.

Not much to do with architecture and planning …….. or rather this is a brilliant example that shows where city planning has to create public spaces that can be a venue and can cope with events like this that attract huge crowds.

Ofelia Plads - the relatively new public space immediately north of the National Theatre and across the harbour from the Opera House - can accommodate surprisingly large crowds and with plenty of room for food stalls and with good access …. there is plenty of parking spaces for cars below the wharf and for public transport, the quayside is at the end of a bus route that terminates at the end of Sankt Annæ Plads and there is a stop for the harbour ferry just the other side of the theatre …… oh and there is plenty of water if the bonfire should take on a life of its own.

The floating bonfires at the end of Nyhavn and at Ofelia Plads on the Eve of Sankt Hans.