Thanks to enlightened city planning, the skyline is dominated not by 20th-century high-rises but by the 17th- and 18th-century brick and copper spires of castles and churches.
To the north, the village of South Harting, with its green copper church spire, lies in a valley.
Commissioned by King Christian IV (1588-1648) -- an ambitious builder, profligate spender and colossal womanizer -- the former astronomical observatory offers views of Copenhagen's orange-tiled roofs and copper church spires gone green with age.
Then it was back into the West, from Berlin across the northern plains to the weathered red brick and green copper church spires of Lübeck, queen of the Hanseatic league cities and, since 2007, home of a wonderful museum recounting the life of Willy Brandt.
A few hundred feet away was the immigration station, an imposing red-brick structure with limestone trim and copper-covered spires, which is now a museum.
Only in 1740 were copper-faced spires installed, designed by Carl Hårleman.
This was a radical departure from traditional church architecture with its grey plaster finish, copper roof, slim spire, hexagonal angles and modern design throughout.
The architect Varney Parkes replaced the old spire, using copper that was pre-weathered so that there was no radical change in its appearance.
The plans of the tower were altered so that it would hold a library, instead of being purely ornamental, windows were added at regular intervals, and it was topped by a copper flèche, or small spire.
A new cycle of novels about Chief Inspector Lewis, a maladroit Geordie copper amid the dreaming spires, played - how could it be otherwise?
It is a replica of the Chapel of Saint-Hubert at the Château d'Amboise in France, with stained-glass windows and a spire decorated with copper deer antlers (Saint Hubert is the patron saint of hunters).
