James Went To Copenhagen
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Copenhagen. Or Copenhahahagen as I was soon to rename it. For some reason I’ve wanted to go to Copenhagen for a little while, but I couldn’t quite remember why.
Maybe it was the pretty houses?
Originally the plan I had in my head was to go to Copenhagen for a couple of days, then get the train to Sweden for a couple of days – maybe go to Gothenburg. But as time went on, it was proving difficult to find an Airbnb in either Copenhagen or Gothenburg – or any other Swedish city closer to Denmark.
In fact, we couldn’t even find an affordable Airbnb that ticked all of our boxes in Copenhagen. So we went for the unique option of booking a hotel. Yeah – a hotel. In 2022. And you know what? Hotels are underrated.
We stayed in the Scandic Falkoner, which was themed around the theatre, it being in the theatre district of Copenhagen – not that we made it to a theatre. I think we paid £375 ish for 4 nights – which gave us a comfortable room each, a bar that was open until late (and that we took good advantage of) and breakfast was included (and that we took good advantage of).
Flights were with Norwegian – which were basic but absolutely totally acceptable – maybe they cost £175 return but also maybe I forgot. Most importantly, I got to see the Hull City plane at Gatwick.
But there is no plan
I have mixed feelings about planning a holiday. In some respects, I think it is good to have some plans of what to do – otherwise you miss out on seeing/doing some pretty cool things. In other respects, I quite like being off-the-cuff – as my life is quite heavily planned normally.
I did intend on doing some planning on the day before I left – however, I met up with a long-lost friend and may, erm, not have been too capable of using computers by time I got home.
So we asked the hotel reception when we arrived, “what should we do today”. One said to go to Reffen, the other (with some “are you sure” kind of look from his colleague) said to go to Freetown Christiana.
Freetown Christiania is basically a former military base that was taken over by squatters in the 1970’s – and became a community with its own laws and rules, from what I can understand is also at least partially independent of the Danish government.
I didn’t take too many photographs as after a short while, it was pointed out to me that one of the rules was no photographs (also no running…don’t panic the street sellers).
Of course, Freetown Christiania is famous for weed – and yes, it was there and very visibly so, with some rather paranoid looking guys that definitely don’t want to be photographed. But the area was very chill and one of the highlights of the holiday – plenty of bars, plenty of places to relax, loads of really interesting buildings – often seemingly self-made. It is quite the hippy dream. And yes, I did try to fit in, if you know what I mean.
For an area that is supposedly off the grid, I found it surprising that the beers were supplied by Carlsberg, and even more so that Carlsberg were selling an IPA. And…it wasn’t bad. Apparently Carlsberg isn’t a bad thing in Copenhagen.
From Freetown Christiania to Reffen
Suitably chilled out, we wandered to Reffen for the evening.
It was kind of a natural progression from Freetown Christiania, a post-industrial area next to the river/sea, with loads of street food stalls and plenty of places to sit, drink and enjoy life.
I was a tad surprised about how basic some of the options for eating were – fish and chips, pizza, burger, fried chicken – though now I’m looking online there was clearly more than I was capable of finding! I ended up with a pizza…which was fine.
Overall the vibe was really cool there, some good music playing at fairly low volumes, really good for people watching and it looked even better once the sun had gone down.
Randomly Wandering
For Saturday, we were reduced to three due to hangover status.
We had no plan, again, but wandered towards the centre and considered going to Tivoli Gardens, which we didn’t know was one of the oldest theme parks in the world, but soon discovered that you had to pay nearly £20 to get in…I certainly didn’t have the stomach for anything more jaunty than walking and drinking.
We settled for looking at some nice buildings, finding what wasn’t the famous Little Mermaid statue, and then waving at tourist boats along the canal from a bar that we found, Kayak bar.
One of the more notable points about Copenhagen is just how clean and tidy it was. I barely saw any litter – when we discussed the lack of litter, two of us pointed out the same Haribo bag that we’d seen on the ground earlier that day.
Imagine that – no litter. I even saw people pick up litter that they’d accidentally dropped. Oh to live in a society where people actually cared about litter.
From the Kayak bar, you could even hire a kayak to go litter-picking in the canal.
Overall, when describing Copenhagen, I cannot help but use the words, “organised, “civilised” and “tidy”. Public transport was good, cycle lanes are everywhere – nobody wears a cycle helmet either, which is probably because it is actually safe to cycle in Copenhagen. I was definitely out of place being obese and on the ugly side of the spectrum, as there are plenty of good-looking people in Copenhagen.
Sweden
Saturday night finished with a drunken few hours in the hotel bar, befriending the staff – who were all superb and friendly to us. Possibly no surprise when we are buying drinks and keeping them amused with our tales (everyone speaks excellent English here), though I don’t remember us paying for all of them.
Anyway, they asked us what else we were doing on our trip, and we advised that we were going to Sweden. I still remember the head barman saying, “why would you do that?”.
Well, we all wanted to tick off another country. I’d already been to Denmark as a child, so Sweden would be only my second new country of the year.
Maybe we should have found somewhere that wasn’t a city, but the train went to Malmo which seemed easy enough – only taking 40 minutes or so.
We found the pretty tourist square quite easily, had some pretty ordinary IPA, then went to the modern art museum, Moderna (nothing to do with vaccines), which was pretty cool – some interesting photographs of dilapidated buildings and some more quirky situations. Along with some cloth in a frame.
Then the sideways rain started – and I had packed, for, erm, summer. No jacket, no umbrella. At least I had jeans on. So we found the nearest pub which was…a Brewdog. Of all things. At least it wasn’t a Wetherspoons.
We did attempt to go to a park once the rain stopped – but it started again. In the end, we gave up and went back to Copenhagen.
Maybe Sweden would have been better without the rain, maybe we could have gone somewhere more interesting than Malmo. Maybe we could have done some more research on where to go.
Also – I did not see one attractive woman in Malmo. Not one attractive woman in Sweden.
Being A Tourist
On our final full day, we actually found some tourists – wahey!
We went to see the actual Little Mermaid statue. Not entirely sure why it seems to be Denmark’s number one tourist attraction, but the area is nicely landscaped and it is pleasant enough down there.
We also ticked off the pretty house street – Nyhavn – and I admired just how many half-eaten meals were left on disgruntled-looking tourist faces from all the bang-average restaurants along the street.
Thankfully, we ended up at a mermaid that I do approve of – The Tipsy Mermaid – a ramshackle old boat with a bar.
I feel like I’m running out of energy to write much more tourist stuff – but on the final day whilst trying to evaporate pre-aeroplane time, we visited Rosenborg Castle – a fairly small castle as these things go, fairly much in the centre of Copenhagen with plenty to see indoors as you wander around.
It’s worth a visit if you like this kind of thing – or have some time to use up. And there are some hidden boobs – and I like this kind of thing. I particularly admired the weird dog-woman with boobs table feet.
Eating In Copenhagen
I’ve saved most of my foodie comments for a separate section. Apparently Copenhagen is a foodie destination – it has 3 restaurants in the latest list of world’s 50 best restaurants, for example.
Though many of the most highly-rated are booked months in advance, or are just out of my price range – Geranium, which was recommended to me before I realised that it is apparently the world’s best restaurant is £376 for food, and at a minimum you need to book 3 months in advance. Noma, which has won the award previously and looks stunning – charges £353. And then you need to buy wine.
I do wonder, maybe when I’m older (and richer) I might end up booking holidays to go to special restaurants. But I’m not at that stage.
I had one good meal, only, in Copenhagen. So the good meal was at Kødbyens Fiskebar – and I had a very nice, delicately cooked piece of hake, with a shared side-dish of carrots.
I did also have a Smørrebrød – which are basically pretty-looking dishes, normally served on rye bread though mine was on wholemeal – originally I think mackerel, but now encompasses all kinds:
The night before I’d had a pretty crap meal at H15. It’s a cool place, in an old warehouse in the meat-packing district, which was one of the cooler areas of Copenhagen and would be great for late night fun.
Alas, the restaurant we went to served dry, stale potatoes and then dry pork – with a blackcurrant sauce. Yuck.
And I thought I was having a weekend off from crap potatoes.
Then on the last evening, we went to Nærvær, which was recommended to us by someone in a cocktail bar – though curiously also owned by the same people that owned that cocktail bar.
This was actually a mixed bag – truffle chips aren’t chips in Europe. Doh. Halibut came with foam…and just creeped me out. Maybe it was a delicacy, and maybe this is why I shouldn’t go to expensive restaurants – but I just found it slimy and yuck. But on the bright side – fried lamb’s pancreas was delicately gorgeous.
Oh but a big shout out to 7Eleven – open 24 hours a day and serving amazing spicy chicken taquitos – well, they were amazing at 2am anyway.
Go To Copenhagen
Any city that sells sausage rolls 24 hours a day gets my vote of approval.
Copenhagen is cool. For sure. It isn’t quite on the level of Berlin – but Berlin knows it is cool, I’m not sure Copenhagen does.
Alas, it is expensive. I think I spent around £620 whilst there for 4 nights – and that is just my spending money. You could do it cheaper than I did – there are plenty of street food places so you could avoid restaurants. You could easily drink less than me – when I got back to London I was delighted to be only paying £7.60 a pint. Then again, you might end up paying more for tourist attractions – we didn’t do much in the way of actual tourist attractions.
Likewise, I’m sure you could find a cheaper hotel, or even a hostel. Or hell, just buy some weed and hang out in Christiania all weekend. You really don’t need to spend as much as we did. Though you could easily spend much more, if not careful.
I highly recommend Copenhagen, as long as you have the money or are stricter than I am on spending whilst away. It’s a chilled, relaxed, proper European feel of a city – safe, clean, tidy, organised – just how I’d like London to be. Though I’d miss London’s chaos.
It’s very much up there with some of the best cities that I’ve visited. And a special thanks to those that came with me to make it such good fun.
So I’ve been back in London for two weeks and I still haven’t booked a holiday. The next place is going to be cheap – that I promise you!