2,5 hours
Daily Tour
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Many of Andersen’s fairy tales would be unimaginable without Copenhagen—not only “The Galoshes of Happiness” or “A Drop of Water,” where the city is the plot, but also “The Tinderbox” and “The Snow Queen.” Andersen knew the city thoroughly and loved it, just as he loved the country—a country with no mountains, no forests, but plenty of islands, sea, and fair-haired Danes, and more towers, spires, and bell towers than houses. A walk through Andersen’s places will help you clearly imagine the life of a storyteller who lived in daily amazement at the world around him, and will reveal the fairytale side of Copenhagen.
“In a large city, where there are so many houses and people that not everyone has room for even a small garden, and so most of the inhabitants have to make do with potted plants, there lived two poor children, and their rose garden was little more than a flowerpot. The roofs of the houses met, and a gutter ran between them. Here, the attic windows of each house looked out onto each other. How wonderfully they played here!”
Hans Christian Andersen, “The Snow Queen”
We'll walk along the old stone pavements, still preserved in some places, and step onto the sidewalk slabs where Andersen walked. And, of course, we'll visit the house where the great storyteller lived. We'll pass the Royal Academy of Arts, which overlooks the romantic old harbor of Nyhavn. The waterfront is lined with colorful houses from the 17th and 18th centuries, huddled tightly together. They're cheerful not only because of their colors, but also because almost every one of them houses sailor's pubs, bars, and taverns on the ground floor or in the basement.
Old schooners, scented with the sea and fish, moor at the piers, with carved bowsprits, rusty anchors, lowered red sails, and tall masts. On the Nyhavn embankment, at number 67, hangs a memorial plaque: "Here lived Hans Christian Andersen for several years, until 1867." A bright, tidy house, with flower vases and porcelain figurines in the windows and cozy curtains... Ordinary people now live here, accustomed to this house and no longer thinking about the fact that a hundred and twenty years ago, a great storyteller lived and worked in these rooms.
On the opposite bank of the harbor stand two houses: No. 18 and No. 20. Andersen wrote his first fairy tales in No. 20 in 1835, and he lived out the last years of his life at No. 18. From his windows, he saw schooners arriving with their catch, heard the sailors' songs... and this inspired him to create his fairy tales. Let's imagine him leaving No. 18 and walking along the embankment. The townspeople greet the writer respectfully. Many know and respect him. Children's faces peer out of the windows, and one hears, "Good morning, Mr. Andersen!"
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