The gilded spiral
Four turns counter-clockwise.
Avda — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jorge Láscar from Melbourne, Australia — CC BY 2.0 · Jorge Láscar from Melbourne, Australia — CC BY 2.0 · Jorge Láscar from Melbourne, Australia — CC BY 2.0
From eight up, without fear of heights — the internal stair is comfortable wood, the final exposed stretch has a solid rail but is narrow and steep. Smaller children and the hesitant settle for the church (free) and the Round Tower's roofed panorama instead — and Christiania is steps away on the same street.
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The Church of Our Saviour is Copenhagen's strangest tower: a gilded spiral spire (1752) whose external stair winds four turns counter-clockwise around it — 400 steps, the last 150 in open air on the spiral itself, which narrows until it fits only one — the summit a golden Saviour statue on a globe 90 metres above Christianshavn. The city's first view, uncontested: the canals below, the centre's green spires and the Øresund bridge toward Sweden — and all of it in open air: no window between you and the wind, which closes it in storms. The interior is lavish baroque with an organ (1698) carried by two carved elephants and an Italian altar — and the carillon rings tunes every hour. The legend that its architect leapt from the top on realising the spiral turned the wrong way is entirely false: he died in his bed years later, and the direction was intended.
Four turns counter-clockwise.
1698, carried by two carved elephants.
Sankt Annæ Gade 29, 1416 Copenhagen