"Where jolly-looking women with quaint headdresses were selling their wares"
They took a tram down Stormgade over a bridge to the island of Slotsholmen, with its famous Fruit and Flower Market, where jolly-looking women with quaint headdresses were selling their wares; then over another bridge into Kongens Nytorv, the King's New Market.
"Here we are in a different world from that which we just left," said Hr. Svensen. They had reached a large Square, a great centre of life and bustle, from which thirteen busy streets radiated. Through the trees in the centre of this great open space the statue of a king was seen, and red omnibuses crept slowly along on each side of the tram line. Here they saw the Royal Theatre, the famous Tivoli Gardens, and the beautiful old Palace of Charlottenburg, close to an inlet of the sea, which reached right into the Square with all its shipping, so that masts and sails and shops and buildings took on the same friendly aspect that they have in Holland.
"But I don't see any 'skyscrapers,' Uncle Thor, like we have in Chicago, sometimes twenty stories high! Where are they?" inquired the little American.
"In a moment or so, Karl, I will show you two 'skyscrapers' that will amuse you!" said Hr. Svensen. "But, look! here is a lively scene for us first."
They were passing the Copenhagen fish-market, or Gammelstrand, as it is called, where the fish are sold alive, after having been kept in large perforated boxes in the canal.
"Now look, Karl! how's that for a skyscraper?"
They were looking at the tall tower of the Bors, or Exchange, one hundred and fifty feet high, with its upper part formed by four great dragons whose tails were so intertwined and twisted together, high up in the air, that they gradually tapered to a point, like a spire against the sky.
Then there was another tower which interested Karl. It was on the Church of Our Redeemer. Circled by a long spiral stairway of three hundred and ninety-seven steps of gleaming brass, which wound round and round and up and up to the very top of the sharp cone, this tower gave the persevering climber a good panoramic view over Copenhagen.
"But not so good a view as we can get from the top of the Round Tower," said Hr. Svensen. "Here we are now."