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

 

skating at Broens Gadekøkken

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Sometimes, good planning in a city is simply about leaving space for people.

This is the square at the end of the Inner Harbour Bridge that crosses the harbour between Nyhavn and Christianshavn.

Through the year this has been the Broens Gadekøkken / The Bridge Street Kitchen for street food but over the Christmas period it has been transformed for one of the seasonal ice rinks in the city.

Formally, this is Grønlandske Handels Plads …. the wharf that was at the centre of trade between Copenhagen and the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland from the middle of the 18th century … after the land was sold to Det almindelige Handelsselskab  / The General Trading Company - who obtained a monopoly for trade with Greenland so these wharves and warehouse were packed with furs, fish and whale oil.

The large brick warehouse was built in the 1760s and is now known as Nordatlantens Brygge or North Atlantic House and is a cultural centre with gallery space and conference facilities.

Ice Skating at Broen will continue through to 23 February

 

Grønlandske Handels Plads

celebration to mark Faroese Flag Day

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The present flag of the Faroe Islands - the Merkið or banner - was hoisted for the first time on 22 June, 1919 and replaced earlier flags - one with the symbol of the ram and a flag with the Oyster Catcher.

To mark the occasion there will be a stalls and a programme of events including music and art at  Nordatlantens Brygge - the large warehouse built in 1766 on the south side of the harbour - almost opposite Nyhavn so now alongside the new bridge over the harbour.

This area, with the main warehouse, smaller warehouses to the south and low sheds to the west, on the Christianshavn side of the dock, was the centre of Danish trade with the Faroe Islands, Finnmark (the very northern part of Norway) and with Iceland and Greenland so dried fish, salted herring, skins, furs and the products from whaling were all unloaded and stored here before being sold and sent out across Europe.

With a dock on the east side, as well as the surviving dock and quay on the west side of the warehouse, goods could be loaded and unloaded on both sides of the warehouse and the hoists and loading doors and the heavy timber structure of the floors, still visible inside the warehouse, are evidence of the quantity and weight of goods held here in transit.

Around 1970, trade with the countries of the North Atlantic was moved to Aalborg and since 2003, the warehouse has been a cultural centre that focuses, generally, on events associated with the countries of the North Atlantic and the nearby Kroyer's Warehouse has been restored and houses the Arctic Institute and the Department of Eskimology.

Through the flag celebrations and arranged by Felagið Føroysk Træseglskip (The Association of Faroese Wood Sailing Ships) sailing ships will be birthed at the quay alongside the warehouse and it gives a very strong idea of what this area must have been like through the 18th and the 19th centuries as ships loaded and unloaded here.

 

events continue at Nordatlantens Brygge until 5 June 2019

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