Parks
King's Garden (55°41′07″N 12°34′48″E / 55.6852°N 12.5799°E / 55.6852; 12.5799 (Rosenborg Castle Gardens)), the garden of Rosenborg Castle, is the oldest and most visited park in Copenhagen. Its landscaping was commenced by Christian IV in 1606. Every year it sees more than 2.5 million visitors, and in the summer months it is packed with sunbathers, picknickers and ballplayers. It also serves as a sculpture garden with a permanent display of sculptures as well as temporary exhibits during summer. Just north of King's Garden a series of parks make up a green strand running right through the centre of the city. These are constructed on the old ramparts of the city and include Østre Anlæg (55°41′26″N 12°34′53″E / 55.6906°N 12.5813°E / 55.6906; 12.5813 (Østre Anlæg)) and Ørsted Park (55°40′52″N 12°33′59″E / 55.6811°N 12.5663°E / 55.6811; 12.5663 (Ørsted Park)), as well as the Botanical Garden (55°41′12″N 12°34′25″E / 55.6867°N 12.5736°E / 55.6867; 12.5736 (University of Copenhagen Botanical Garden)), which is particularly noted for a large complex of 19th-century greenhouses donated by Carlsberg founder J. C. Jacobsen.
Fælledparken (55°42′08″N 12°34′02″E / 55.7023°N 12.5672°E / 55.7023; 12.5672 (Fælledparken)) in the northern part of the city is, at 58 hectares, the largest park in Copenhagen. It is popular for sports and hosts an array of annual events, including a free opera concert at the opening of the opera season, other open-air concerts, carnival, Labour Day celebrations and the Copenhagen Historic Grand Prix, which is a race for antique cars. Another popular park is the Frederiksberg Garden (55°40′31″N 12°31′33″E / 55.6754°N 12.5257°E / 55.6754; 12.5257 (Frederiksberg Park)), which is a 32-hectare romantic landscape park. It houses a large colony of very tame grey herons along with other waterfowl. The park also offers views of the elephants and the elephant house, designed by the world-famous British architect Norman Foster, at the adjacent Copenhagen Zoo.
Some of Copenhagen's newer parks draw from their position by the water. Havneparken (55°39′59″N 12°34′31″E / 55.6663°N 12.5754°E / 55.6663; 12.5754 (Havneparken)), established in 1995, covers 2.8 hectares of dockland in the Islands Brygge neighbourhood and has a bandstand roofed by an upside-down old wooden ship, as well as the first of Copenhagen's harbour baths. Amager Beach Park (55°39′24″N 12°38′28″E / 55.6566°N 12.6411°E / 55.6566; 12.6411 (Amager Beach Park)) was founded in 1934, but in 2005 a 2.4-kilometre-long artificial island was added, separated from the original beach by a lagoon crossed by three bridges.
It is official municipal policy in Copenhagen that all citizens by 2015 must be able to reach a park or beach on foot in less than 15 minutes. In line with this policy, several new parks are under development in areas poor in green spaces. One of those recently completed is Superkilen, an innovative park for the ethnic inhabitants of the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen.
Read more about this topic: Parks And Open Spaces In Copenhagen
Famous quotes containing the word parks:
“Towns are full of people, houses full of tenants, hotels full of guests, trains full of travelers, cafés full of customers, parks full of promenaders, consulting-rooms of famous doctors full of patients, theatres full of spectators, and beaches full of bathers. What previously was, in general, no problem, now begins to be an everyday one, namely, to find room.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“Perhaps our own woods and fields,—in the best wooded towns, where we need not quarrel about the huckleberries,—with the primitive swamps scattered here and there in their midst, but not prevailing over them, are the perfection of parks and groves, gardens, arbors, paths, vistas, and landscapes. They are the natural consequence of what art and refinement we as a people have.... Or, I would rather say, such were our groves twenty years ago.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)