Ode to Christiania
Lately I’ve been recovering from an extremely stressful period of my life. An important part of my recovery has been my many walks at Christiania. I would have recovered much slower without the beautiful nature of Christiania nearby. Let me tell you a bit about Christiania and why I’m so grateful of it.
Christiania is a former military base, now basically in the middle of Copenhagen. In the 70’s the area was abandoned by the military, and stood vacant during a period of housing shortage. The short story is that a bunch of hippies occupied the area and it’s buildings, and was eventually were allowed to stay there. To read more check out Christianias own Guide to Christiania (pdf).
Personally, despite all the drug dealing in the infamous Pusher Street, I believe Christiania to be the best managed area of all Copenhagen. Christiania has a unique mix of personal freedom, nature, consensus democracy and culture that you cannot find anywhere else.
Take a look for yourselves, these are pictures I’ve taken during May 2015.
Buildings and nature mix well together at car-free Christiania: 
Christiania has a fantastic system of paths where you can get in touch with nature and find peace: 
A countryside in the middle of Copenhagen: 
The nature and wildlife is beautiful. 
A tree has chosen to co-exist with an old street light. 
I’ve read on posters at Christiania, that the government is planning to “clean up” the nature at Christiania, turning it into yet another boring homogenous park. I really hope this never happens. Christiania is infinitely more beautiful than any of the government driven parks in any city I’ve been to. We need wild nature in our cities, not less! Christiania is a place of great biodiversity and should not be put under management of those running parks, but should rather be considered wild nature worth saving rather than “cleaning”. We don’t need a park, we need Christiania!.
I’m very grateful for the existence of Christiania, so thank you so much people of Christiania for creating, maintaining and protecting the best part of Copenhagen.