Church Of Our Saviour Spire - Copenhagen, Denmark
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 55° 40.379 E 012° 35.641
33U E 348695 N 6172308
The church of Our Saviour has a spire with an external spiral staircase that is open to the public allowing you to climb to a height of 90 metres.
Waymark Code: WMHEVT
Location: Denmark
Date Posted: 07/02/2013
Views: 33
The church was completed in 1695 but at that time there were not enough funds for the building of a spire. King Frederick V funded the building of the spire which was completed in 1752.
Architect Lauritz de Thurah based his design on the Roman Catholic church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza in Rome. It has an external staircase that turns four times anticlockwise around the spire. The only difference is that on this church the staircase is made from a gilded brown timber frame rather than stone.
There are 250 steps to the top of the tower followed by a further 150 on the external staircase to the top of the spire. The steps are quite wide near the bottom of the tower, but get narrower the further up you go. Near the top of the tower the stairs change to a spiral staircase even before reaching the spire itself. At the top of the spire is a golden ball with a statue of Jesus Christ on top.
The bell tower houses the largest carillon in Northern Europe and consists of 40 bells which play a tune on the hour. Inside the tower there are lights that flash to give a warning the bells are about to start.
Jules Verne included a story about the spire in his book Journey to the Centre of the Earth, whereby some of the characters climb to the top of the tower to try and cure their fear of heights. This
church web page
has an extract from the book and a picture of the scene. Note however that the illustration in the book shows the spiral as clockwise rather than anti-clockwise as it should be.
The spire was opened by King Frederick V when he climbed all the way to the top of the spire. These days you can recreate both his journey and that of the characters from the book.