Zealand - Denmark - page 251

The aptly named Centralhotellet is adjacent to the tourist office, complete with a slick cafe
in the lobby. The rooms upstairs are straightforward and admittedly dowdy, while the ren-
ovated rooms in a separate wing at the back are lighter and slightly more modern. Four of
the doubles have bathrooms.
KØGE: THE OLD & THE BEAUTIFUL
Storybook buildings pepper the streets of Køge, turning the clock back a few hundred
years and firing up the imagination. The Køge Museum is housed in a building dating back
to the early 17th century, wine bar Hugos Vinkjælder contains a medieval brick-built cellar
dating to 1300, and the neoclassical Køge Rådhus ( MAP GOOGLE MAP ) - on the eastern
side of Torvet - is said to be the oldest functioning town hall in Denmark. At the back of
the town hall is a building erected in 1600 to serve as an inn for King Christian IV, when he
travelled from his Copenhagen palace to visit his mother at Nykøbing Slot.
Less heartwarming is a marble plaque marked Kiøge Huskors (Kiøge and Kjøge are old
spellings of Køge) on the corner building at Torvet 2. It honours the victims of a witch-
hunt in the 17th century, when 16 people were burned at the stake, including two resid-
ents of an earlier house on this site.
By the southeastern corner of Torvet, Brogade has no shortage of veteran buildings.
Brogade 1 has housed a pharmacy on this site since 1660, while Brogade 16 is famed as
Køge's longest timber-framed house, erected in 1636 by the town's mayor. In 1987 work-
ers in the courtyard at Brogade 17 unearthed an old wooden trunk filled with over 2000
17th-century silver coins, the largest coin-hoard ever found in Denmark. Some of these
are now on display at the Køge Museum. Another 17th-century survivor is Brogade 23 -
built around 1638, its carved cherubs are the work of famed 17th-century artist Abel
Schrøder.
Beating them all in the age stakes is the building at Kirkestræde 20 , which hit the
scene in 1527. Denmark's oldest half-timbered house, its 4m-by-5m dimensions once
housed a late-19th-century tanner, his wife and 10 children. If you do drop by, also check
out Kirkestræde 3 . Built by Oluf Sandersen and his wife Margareta Jørgensdatter in
1638, the building's date is recorded in the lettering above the gate. Close by,
Kirkestræde 13 dates back to the 16th century, its twisting chimney pot was an advert to
passers-by seeking a blacksmith.
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