Dæmonen roller coaster in Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen. May 2008.

Tivoli, which opened in 1843, is not the oldest amusement park in the world. It is only the second-oldest (after nearby Dreyhavsbakken, which opened in 1583). Consolation prize: Tivoli, with its merry-go-round and boat rides, resident symphony orchestra and Chinese harlequin theater (which is designed like a peacock), is the most visited amusement park in Scandinavia. At night its gardens are bright with coloured lamps and hundreds of thousands of little lights.

Located in the center of Copenhagen, Tivoli is an urban phenomenon and is surrounded by town hall square, the Hans Christian Anderson house, and the main train station. The park is open from April to September, the Danish summer season, and then reopened for the Christmas season. It was founded by Georg Cartensen, who was given a five-year commission by King Christian VIII; Cartensen reportedly persuaded the king by telling him, “when the people are amused, they do not think about politics.” From the beginning, the park included restaurants, cafés, a theater, gardens and flower beds, a merry-go-round and fanciful Oriental-style buildings. 

In 1964, the Beatles played at Tivoli. Michael Jackson offered to buy it. Walt Disney once described the park as “happy, with an unbuttoned air,” and he borrowed heavily from its whimsy for Disneyland. Disney even told his wife, “Now this is what an amusement place should be!” But Tivoli is more tranquil  than the Disney parks, perhaps more tranquil than any other theme park, full of cozy gardens and fountains and scattered benches. 

The Dæmonen (Demon) roller coaster opened in 2004 and is one of the most expensive structures in the park. It is a floorless coaster, which means that a rider’s legs dangle during the ride.

Tivoli is probably the most famous landmark in Copenhagen - if not in all of Denmark.  in 1944, the Nazis attempted to burn it down. But the Danes rebuilt and reopened the park within weeks.

“She loved Tivoli Gardens, in the heart of Copenhagen; her parents had taken her there, often, when she was a little girl. she remembered the music and the brightly colored lights, the carousel and ice cream and especially the magnificent fireworks in the evenings; the huge colored splashes and bursts of lights in the evening sky.

‘I remember the fireworks best of all,’ she commented to Ellen.

‘Me too,’ Kirsti said. ‘I remember the fireworks.’

‘Silly,’ Annemarie scoffed. ‘You never saw the fireworks.’ Tivoli Gardens was closed now. the German occupation forces had burned part of it, perhaps as a way of punishing the fun-loving Danes for their lighthearted pleasures.”    - Lois Lowry, Number the Stars

Tivoli still has fireworks in the evenings.

lights reflected in the water. Venice, May 2008.

I know this picture isn’t really of anything in particular, and I also know that it’s blurry and smeared and technically poor. But I was writing an email to Young Will, being very nostalgic about all the weeks we lived there together, and this was the picture that seemed most appropriate.

I was telling him about Mendelssohn’s Venetian Gondola Song, a piece I played a long time ago:

“…in the way I played it and in the way I dreamed it, I saw melancholy, mustached men in black and white shirts, gliding so gracefully as if dancing on the pointed ends of pointed boats, slicing through crystally waters, letting their oars scrape moss and bark and ancient brick. Past little candles in windows, soft voices singing into the night, singing to the stars, and meanwhile, I dreamed that every trill I played was a soft wave rippling onto the walls of the bridges that connected so many damp sidewalks. I saw every star reflecting the black, lonely waters; I saw shadows reflected in the ground floor windows of old sunken buildings; I saw those buildings, once unfinished and empty, once full and warm, now decrepit.”

©Niti Parthasarathy (elle told me to do this)

Copenhagen, May 2009. View from the boat ride.

kvetchlandia:

Vydareny Ivan      Budapest     1908

Budapest is a phenomenal city. it isn’t saturated with tourists so all its many old-world mysteries - alleys that seduce with shadows, strange cobblestoned paths, incomprehensible conversations - feel authentic and amplified.

Best of all, just like in this picture, Budapest is a city of towers and big bridges, of operatic designs; the blurry spires in the top-right corner of the photo are from the Liberty Bridge, the narrowest bridge spanning the Danube that cleaves the city into its Buda and Pest halves.

—

Below - A view of the Margaret (Margit) Bridge across the Danube, March 2009. The Houses of Parliament are on the right. It was a cold, cloudy day, but in some inexplicable way, that made Budapest even lovelier; not all cities are meant to be seen in the sun.

the view from guidecca in venice, july 08. this is the best place to go in venice. it has little cramped grocery stores and yummy restaurants with candlelight shadows. Wandering one day, I ended up in an unseen square where a street musician was playing a lute, dressed completely in Renaissance attire. He looked like he had accidentally been transported here from the 16^th century and had just kept on playing. I watched him silently for a few minutes, listening to him pluck his odd instrument.  The wind caused his headdress to float behind him like a magic carpet. His legs were crossed, and under his black robe, I saw an exposed sock with a basketball pattern.

This was one of my favorite days. Young Will and Connor and I took the boat from San Servolo, where we were living, to Guidecca and wandered around for a while and ate dessert before dinner. Then we went to the fancy Hilton, pretended we were guests and watched a football match in the hotel bar.

georgiakatee:

I find trains so fasinating, everyone on them is going somewhere and meeting someone, everyones got a story, everyones going somewhere whether they realise it or not.

Also it is nice to sit by the window and watch unknown roads go by.

on the way from trondheim to oslo, may 2008. The train wound around snowy mountains. Vast plains of snow and ice and a few dead trees. Bright houses with dark trim, dainty and symmetrical, like fairy-tale transplants. Towns hidden in a forest buried to its knees in fog. I love trains.

i drove to cincinnati with this song playing on repeat while i zoomed through the tennessee mountain highway. it was a time of undiluted happiness, and i will probably think of that day (August 10, 2007) on my deathbed.

“Rio de Janeiro was sunny and chilly this morning, with the tiniest hint of a breeze pushing through my hair and making my cheeks flush as I headed home. Views of water and peaks: dimpled hills that dwarf the surrounding skyscrapers; a concave coastline dissolving into the Atlantic; the seamless, searing blue of the horizon and the ocean. A monstrous metropolis that resembles an etch-a-sketch scribble from above.

I like taking the bus home on these days.” - my diary. September 17, 2008, my birthday.

san marco square, venice. june 2009. venice is best in the evening when tourists empty away. i loved san marco best when i was just passing through, heading home.

the view from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, where my dad went to college. Nidaros Cathedral and the fjord behind. May 2009.

my dad used to ski to school sometimes.