All weathers in Copenhagen

The train from Hamburg to Fredericia, over the Danish border, was packed and there was total confusion as all the seats were marked as reserved. Reservations weren’t compulsory on the train and once it became clear that most people didn’t have reservations, we grabbed seats and settled down for the journey. The landscape between Hamburg and all the way to Copenhagen was pretty uninspiring, so was a good opportunity to draft the next blog post relating to our experiences in Hamburg and to read and nap. Our passports were checked at the border by Danish police, and this is the first time since we left home that we’ve been asked to show our passports on a train. One person was taken off the train, we assume because they didn’t have papers. At Fredericia we changed onto the Copenhagen train. It stopped once, at a place called Odense, which we later found out was the birthplace of Hans Christian Andersen, and we did pass over a couple of scenic bridges.

Arrival into Copenhagen was pretty underwhelming; as the train pulled into the station it all looked dull and dowdy, and the walk from the station to our hotel, Wake Up Copenhagen, more of the same. The dark grey clouds and lack of sunshine didn’t help to lift the atmosphere.

Our hotel room was minimalist, to say the least. I think I’d been expecting something a bit more refined than what we got, as it wasn't one of our cheapest hotels, but compared to lots of others in Copenhagen it wasn’t as expensive as it had seemed when we booked it from home. The check-in was cursory and brusque, and we were told that a second duvet, pillow and towels were in the drawer under the bed; this was just as well as what we had was a double bed, pushed right up to the wall under the window, with one single duvet and one very small pillow, and one bath towel and hand towel in the bathroom. Almost all the places we’ve stayed have provided a double or king-size bed with separate single duvets, so we are used to that now, but it was odd to have only one single duvet and have to make up the rest ourselves. The wardrobe was a rail with 4 hangers, so good job I wasn’t travelling with a wardrobe of grand clothes. The bathroom was a small capsule in the room with frosted glass walls, but nice and clean, and the room was lovely and warm with under-floor heating. 

We beat a hasty retreat to start exploring our new host city and were pleased to find the sun had come out and the blue sky immediately made things look more interesting and welcoming. Our first impressions weren’t far out on the neighbourhood around our hotel and the station, but we walked into the main street then turned off it again and found ourselves in a much more charming and inviting environment. We hadn't eaten or drunk anything other than water since breakfast, some 7 hours earlier as we’d assumed we’d be able to pick up snack stuff either on the trains or at the interim station, but there were no on-board refreshments and we didn’t have any time at Fredericia as our connection was already in the station.

We found an italian restaurant, Il Ponte, that looked nice and not too expensive, and delivered a tasty and filling meal. However, it was Saturday night and they were busy with people dropping in without reservations, same as we had, so they didn’t hang around with the service and we were soon out. Of course, we had to go into a bar called the Bastard Cafe, which was an odd place. 

How could we not go in?

From what we could gather it was the home to a music collective and we went into one of the bars and had a drink and listened to a couple of young bands practising. My husband told the first one that their sound was reminiscent of Pink Floyd and they were pleased by that as they were Pink Floyd fans - they looked as though they had an average age of 17, so that was surprising. We then moved on to a bar called, invitingly, The Summer of Love 1977, which was more sophisticated and had a drink or two before the half hour walk back to the hotel. It was noteworthy that the sun was still out at around 9pm and when we made our way home around 10.30ish (dirty stopouts!) there was a full moon and it was totally dark.

The big shock came the following morning when I woke up and saw it was fully light, looked at my watch and it was 5am! Of course, it hadn’t occurred to us that the days here this time of year just keep getting longer, but it felt a bit odd!

We had two full days in Copenhagen and it really grew on us as we got to know it better. It has a wonderful setting 

The harbour

The canals

occupying coastal islands looking out onto the Baltic Sea and over to Sweden, and there are lots of bars and places to eat, as well as sights to visit. People in shops are helpful and friendly but there is no pressure put on you to buy, they seem genuinely to want to provide a service, but only if it’s what you want. We saw the parliament buildings which are a part of the royal palace and which were the background for the TV series, Borgen, and the city hall, which was a key building in the first series of The Killing. Then from the top of the tower in the royal palace, in which we were taken up via The King’s Lift, we could see the Oresund crossing, aka The Bridge, across which Saga and Martin travelled between Malmo in Sweden and Copenhagen to collaborate on their murder case.

Oresund crossing (The Bridge) in background

We found a fantastic bakery/cafe called Andersen’s directly opposite the railway station and had breakfast there twice and bought a picnic for the train journey to Stockholm - highly recommended.

On our second day, we set off on our explorations fairly early as rain was forecast for later. What we actually got was a violent hail shower while we were in the Rosenborg Park, 

Spring hail shower

After the storm

so we made for the botanic gardens, which had “Palm Houses,” marked on our city map and which turned out to be big greenhouses which had the temperature and humidity of the Amazon rain forest, and plants to match, 

Keeping warm in the greenhouses

so we hung around in there for a while and when we emerged into the real world, the sun had come out and things had warmed up again.

Botanical Gardens

We had one funny moment at the restaurant where we had dinner that evening. We found a restaurant and the waitress was, untypically from our experience in Copenhagen, fairly uncommunicative. We ordered our food then had a careful look at the wine list so see whether or not our budget would stretch to a bottle or we should just go for one glass each (deprivation indeed!). The cheapest red was a Bardolino so we asked for a bottle of that only to be told that the wine list she'd given us was an old one and the Bardolino was now off. We had a look at the current, rather limited, list and ordered the cheapest which was a Portuguese wine, that's all we could understand; we were a bit taken aback when she asked us, "Are you sure you want a whole bottle?" Well yes, we did, but we were rather surprised when the wine came in a decanter, when everyone else had normal bottles. We then started to panic that we'd ordered some expensive port and it did taste very nice and quite robust. However, being us, we drank it anyway and enjoyed it, and I had a fit of the giggles speculating that this might cost us "an arm and a leg!". When the bill came, in fact, it was the same price as the Bardolino and our only explanation for the decanter was that it was cheap wine out of a box or bag, but it did taste very nice.

One place that my husband had read about on the listings for Copenhagen was a pub/eaterie called War Pigs (a Black Sabbath track, so I’m told) and he was keen for us to go. This wasn’t the easiest place to find but when we did it was worth the search. It’s a large space with food served to you on trays, e.g. pulled pork or brisket of beef, by the quarter, half or full pound, with sides like homemade coleslaw, potato salad, pickles, 

Pigging out at War Pigs

and a real ale bar selling over 20 real ales, and playing wall to wall rock and punk music. So we managed to pass a good couple of hours there very pleasantly.

Copenhagen: fun and laid back

We stayed at the Wake Up Copenhagen, Carsten Niebuhrs, which is fairly central but is quite basic and minimalist in the extreme. However, it’s also reasonably priced, hence the “no frills” approach, I suppose.

Restaurants: there are so many decent restaurants and bars once you move out slightly out of the city centre. We had some good meals, although nothing in Copenhagen is cheap by British standards, but I would recommend War Pigs; well worth the walk out of the centre of the city.

Sightseeing tip: We were underwhelmed by the statue of the Little Mermaid, but of course we had to go and do a selfie like everyone else there - these selfies make me long for the days when we used the self-timers on our more primitive cameras, set up the camera on a wall, pushed the button and ran into the frame before the picture took! However, we did like the statue of Hans Christian Anderson which was much closer to our hotel and who was at least a real person!

Hans Christian Andersen himself!

Practical tip: my new thermal vest got its first outing and came into its own when the sun wasn't around!