Copenhagen Apr 25 - 27

These posts are from my visit to the European Congress for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases that I attended with my team. I then had three days holiday in Copenhagen. It was my first visit to Denmark and I was enchanted by the small city full of cyclists, the architecture, museums, the Nordic fish and how the Danish sense of design pervades the whole city. I can’t wait to go back.

Light in the Black Diamond library, tales of the Danish Jewish experience during World War 2

A heavy storm threatened and I just reached the new Royal Library to shelter form the storm. I had seen the fabulous huge rectangular black front of the building on the harbour front. Inside the museum is beautiful and full of light with stairs curving up through the building; there is a fine cafe with views out onto the harbour. There were several exhibitors on, one on Danish War photos. These captured the ambivalent aspects of the Danish occupation by the Nazis, but the captions were written in Danish so it was difficult to pick up nuances. The main treasures of the library were displayed with medieval psalters, Luther’s bible, Bach’s music and Audubon bird paintings, but the lighting was very low and the English captions difficult to read.

The Jewish museum has had an armed guard since the café bombings in February so I went in out of solidarity. I saw exhibition called “Home” about the 4300 Jews who were smuggled out of Denmark into Sweden at the end of the 2 WW. The exhibition was well curated and reflected different aspects of the Jewish experience with photos and stories. Some children were adopted, others never talked about their experiences, other perished in camps, the Jewish homes in Copenhagen were partially protected from the Nazis. Returnees were given money and ration cards.

I saw the huge photos of the Canadian Stan Douglas in an old church. He recreates huge scenes in his photo-conceptualist works which include people at the races in the 1920s and scenes outside factories. I shopped and then appreciated the 15 min metro journey to the airport because it compensated for the slow long queues through security, so unDanish.

Untold stories at the Louisiana art gallery and Danish designer stores

My artistic friends all said that a visit to the Louisiana art gallery was a “must do” in Copenhagen. It is built in cliffs overlooking the strait to Sweden and has collections of art and sculpture. It is also out in the suburbs so one takes the train from the 19century Copenhagen Central station. As I walked to the gallery through the trees I chatted to a microbiologist from Geneva (an ECCMID attendee). We walked around the gallery together, there were large exhibitions of works by Jeff Wall, David Hockney and Peter Doig. I enjoyed the Jeff Wall photos best, his compositions always have people in interesting situations for which one creates a narrative; a family chopping up pigs, a black man sitting alone in a tiny over crowded room listening to a record, boys boxing in a beautiful room. The Hockneys were charcoal drawings of Yorkshire trees, which although good were missing the bright colour which I so enjoy in his work. There was a large Peter Doig retrospective, again his pictures hint at untold stories, a boat is trapped in the jungle with creepers growing over it, three figures in a snowy landscape, a man on his plantation in the Caribbean. The dramatic pictures made by Richard Moose with greens being turned in brilliant pinks in war scenes from Congo were also there, and I had seen them last year at the Photographers' Gallery in London. The cafe has fantastic views across the sea to Sweden and sculptures placed artfully amongst the trees, reflecting them.
I browsed the department stores, Bolig and Ilium, enjoying Danish design and cleanness of the displays and the items themselves, it is so nice to be away from English over- decoration. I sat in cafe Noorden looking out on the central square (Hojbro Plads) and fountain. Nice walk back to the hotel past old churches.

The sun’s journey in Danish myth and admiring the chairs but not using them

At the national museum I enjoyed the excellent overview of Danish history. The prehistory is notable and amazingly preserved human bodies have been retrieved from the bogs. One victim’s skull and bones were present and her cloth was so well preserved that the cloth pattern was still visible. This from a body laid there 26 centuries ago. The curators were a little over diligent, I felt as though I had seen every flint head, beaker and spear found in Denmark rather than just a selection. The Danish prehistory tale of the sun’s journey daily journey is beautiful; the sun is taken by a fish from the underworld at dawn, then carried by day horses and at sunset is taken back to the underworld hidden in snake coils. All aspects of Danish life over the centuries are illustrated in a series of furnished rooms. I found the final section most interesting with a decade wise illustration of Danish life in the 20 century showing people moving from farms to city and the growth of the labour movement, the resistance during World War 2 and then the growth of liberal values and Denmark’s role as a peacekeeper. I enjoyed more herrings for lunch in a cellar cafe close to the Radhuis.
The Danish Design Museum is in an old house with a huge garden courtyard with linden trees. There are several exhibitions currently, the first I walked through was called “The century of the child” and showed children's design for all ages. I then saw an interesting collection called “Utopia and Reality” about Danish design and cultural movements. Then I learnt about storage furniture through the ages and lastly about Kaare Klint, a designer and founder of the museum. The museum was interesting and full of ideas but also nowhere to sit and absorb the ideas and information, nearly all the chairs had “do not sit” signs on them. One could admire the chairs but not use them.

Then I walked the streets enjoying the sunshine. In the early evening I decided to rest so took the canal trip and the canal trip was fun and I enjoyed being in the harbour and seeing the modern new opera house and the black diamond building of the Royal Library. I chatted to two Aussie microbiologists who work in Brisbane for a large private company like the The Doctors Lab who are taking over microbiology in the UK. They were positive about their work and I understood how these practices will develop in the UK over the next decade, in large labs with good infra-structure. I had a fish supper with good beer on Nyhavn, sitting inside so that I was a bit warmer.

a 360 o view of Copenhagen from Rundturen

At ECCMID a young Irish scientist gave an excellent lecture on microbiomes. We now have the computing power to do big analyses on our numerous microbial passengers in our guts, and elsewhere and we can now analyses these in detail. They had studied the microbiomes of elite athletes and had found some small differences between them and controls but these differences seemed to be a long way from being important clinically.

I wandered around Copenhagen and found myself a victim of the “Monday in Europe” problem because all the museums and art galleries were closed. I walked from Kongens nytov through the royal palace and stables to the Radhuis (Town Hall). This was open and I wandered around and observed people working in highly decorated Victorian gothic offices like St Pancras Station. I walked through the town enjoying the different styles of architecture across the centuries around the university area. The Rundturen was built in the 17 c as an observatory for Tycho Brahe and has a gently curving slope up to the top with fantastic views across the whole city in the late afternoon light. I enjoyed Copenhagen's small size and walking everywhere, I had a Nordic cuisine supper in an Art Deco jazz venue on the harbour, with beautiful views of a darkening sky and baked brill to eat. It is cold here and I needed warmer jacket and gloves.

ECCMID, joining ESCMID mycobacterial group, meal out in the old city

My day started with the tropical session at 9.00 Laura Nabarro from HTD was the ninth presenter in ten tropical cases, most of the other presentations had flaws in the study design. At the mycobacterial session I linked up with Emmanuelle Cambau from the French TB service who is also on the WHO leprosy group. I learnt that Dengue fever is now definitely being transmitted in Southern France when patients acquire dengue abroad and are then bitten by local mosquitoes who then transmit the infection to people who have stayed at home. In Slovenia tick borne encephalitis is a problem. In the evening I joined the ESMID mycobacterial group nearly all of whom are working on TB and only 2 of us are leprosy workers. Like all mycobacterial groups it contains people with very different interests from basic scientists through to clinicians working on rare mycobacterial infections such as a Croatian respiratory physician who is interested in NTMs. We had supper out in a traditional restaurant in the old town and I had excellent plaice.