Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
h ere was actually a murder in 2005, as pushers fought to establish their
turf—almost unthinkable in Copenhagen before the stalls along Pusher
Street were bulldozed. (For more on marijuana, see Chapter 7.)
Get beyond the touristy main drag of Christiania, and you'll i nd a fas-
cinating, ramshackle world of peaceniks shul ed with some irony among the
moats, earthen ramparts, and barracks of the former military base. Alternative
housing, carpenter shops, hippie villas, cozy tea houses, children's playgrounds,
peaceful lanes, and interfaith stupa-like temples serve people who believe that
“to be normal is to be in a straightjacket.”
h ere are a handful of basic rules: no cars, no hard drugs, no guns, no
explosives, and so on. A few “luxury hippies” have oil heat, but most use wood
or gas. h e community has one mailing address. A phone chain provides a
system of communal security because, as people there report, they've had bad
experiences calling the police. As a reminder of the constant police presence
lately, my favorite Christiania café, Månei skeren (“Moon Fisher”), has a sign
outside s aying: “h e world's safest café—police raids nearly every day.”
And an amazing thing has happened: Christiania—famous for its counter-
culture scene, geodesic domes on its back streets, and vegetarian cafés—has
become the third-most-visited sight among tourists in Copenhagen. Move
over,
Little Mermaid.
I recently got an email from some traveling readers. h ey said, “We're not
prudes, but Christiania was creepy. Don't take kids here or go after dark.”
I agree. h e free city is not pretty. But hanging out with parents raising
their children with Christiania values, and sharing a meal featuring home-
grown vegetables with a couple born and raised in this community, I found a
distinct human beauty in the place. And I came to believe more strongly than
ever that it's important to allow this social experiment and give alternative-
type people a place to live out their values.
As I biked through Christiania, it also occurred to me that, except for
the bottled beer being sold, there was not a hint of any corporate entity in
the entire “free city.” h ere was no advertising and no big business. Everything
was handmade. Nothing was packaged. People consumed as if how they
spent their money shaped the environment in which they lived and raised
their families. It's not such a far cry from their fellow Danes, who also see
themselves as conscientious participants in society.
But ever since its inception, Christiania has been a political hot potato.
No one in the Danish establishment wanted it. And no one has had the
