In my opinion, Copenhagen is about as close as you can get to a perfect city. The buildings are beautiful. It's super clean. People bike everywhere in these wide, well-maintained bike lanes. Everyone is really tall, beautiful, and stylish. There was good coffee, interesting neighborhoods, and history to discover. The only downside was the cost: Copenhagen is quite expensive for travelers. In another post, I will explore budget tips for staying in Copenhagen, but, for now, let me describe the wonderful days we spent discovering Copenhagen. Day 1We woke up late at our Airbnb, feeling jet lagged. We had arrived past midnight and relied on the kindness of a local to help us find the correct bus stop. After waking up, we set out immediately for one of the coffee shops I had researched before the trip: Original Coffee. We were staying in Østerbro, one of Copenhagen's neighborhoods north of the city center, described by some locals as the place for "boring people and babies". There were lots of baby strollers and it was quite a walk to the city center, but, overall, it was a nice, quiet neighborhood to stay in. We ended up walking A LOT during our stay there. Luckily for us, one of the Original Coffee locations was on the way to the city center. After caffeinating ourselves and stopping for a quick late lunch, we headed to Rådhuspladsen, the city hall, where the Grand Tour of Copenhagen with Copenhagen Free Walking Tours would begin at 3pm. We chose the Grand Tour from the various options they provide because we wanted to orient ourselves on our first day there. And, yes, the name is correct - the tour is free, but the guides work for tips, so you can decide how much to pay at the end. The Grand Tour lasted about 3 hours and touched on most of the major sights in Copenhagen. As you can imagine, with a free walking tour, you don't get to enter any of the palaces, museums, or attractions, but you do get to view the exteriors (often beautiful), learn a bit of history about each place, and figure out where everything is, in case you do want to come back later. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour and felt that we saw a lot of the city center, so we tipped our guide 100 dkk (~$15) for both of us. Here are some of the things we saw on the Grand Tour: We finished the day by having dinner at a raw foods restaurant, where we sat outside on the square.. Something that I loved in Copenhagen was that the outdoor seating at cafes provided blankets for chilly nights. I covered my lap and enjoyed the scenery despite an evening chill in the air. From there, we walked to a wine bar, where we met a fabulous bartender who spent a good portion of the night giving us recommendations about the city. Day 2We began our second day in Copenhagen much earlier than the first, and, unfortunately, we got caught in some of the unpredictable Copenhagen weather. We began by walking to Nørrebro, a neighborhood situated next to Østerbro, for coffee. The Coffee Collective is well-known in coffee circles. In fact, we saw shops in Budapest selling beans roasted by The Coffee Collective and encountered jealous Budapest baristas when we told them that we had just been to the shops in Copenhagen. Following coffee, we once again headed toward the city center on foot, getting caught in an unexpected thunderstorm and having to duck into a kebab shop to wait out the rain. While filling our stomachs with kebabs, I ran into someone that I knew from high school, back in Brookfield, Wisconsin. It really is a small world sometimes. After lunch, we bought some dry socks and stopped in the National Museum while we waited for the weather to improve. The National Museum is FREE and houses exhibits on Danish history and culture, including Viking artifacts. Once the storm had passed, we headed to Højbro Plads to meet up with Copenhagen Free Walking Tours again. We elected to go on the Christianshavn Tour, a 90 minute tour of the Christianshavn neighborhood that ends at the entrance to Freetown Christiania. Here are the highlights of our second free walking tour: As I mentioned above, the Christianshavn tour ended at one of the entrances to Freetown Christiania, a self-declared autonomous community in the Christianshavn neighborhood. It was created by residents squatting in abandoned military barracks and evolved into a kind of anarchist, "hippie commune", with its own flag and laws. Christiania is a community of people who collectively make decisions, contribute to the well-being of the rest of the community, and demonstrate extreme creativity in art and architecture. I can honestly say that I have never been anywhere like Christiania. I personally liked the Christiania bike, a three wheeled bike with a large basket in front, invented for transporting children around the community, since cars are not allowed inside. From Christiania, it was a short walk to one of our favorite spots in the city: Copenhagen Street Food on Paper Island. Copenhagen Street Food is a collection of food stands with a variety of international cuisines. Its aim is to be "a colorful and cheap street food market for the people". Go for a meal, go for coffee, go for a snack, go for a drink, just go here if you are in Copenhagen. You can grab your food inside and then head outside to picnic tables overlooking the harbor. All the stalls have to offer at least one item for 50-75 dkk (~$7.60-$11.40), so still not super cheap but definitely more affordable than most food in Copenhagen. I will make the disclaimer that most of the dinners we wanted were slightly more than that range (around 85 dkk or $13). On our first visit, we ate pulled pork egg wraps from one stall and ordered green juice from another. Yes, we went back another day. Day 3Our third day in Copenhagen once again began with The Coffee Collective and food at Grød in Nørrebro. Grød is a porridge restaurant, where we ate the Acai & Chia Bowl, which was surprisingly filling and surprisingly affordable for Copenhagen (55 dkk or $8.40). From here, it was an easy walk to Assistens Kirkegård, a large, vibrantly green cemetery in Nørrebro. It may sound weird to walk through a cemetery for fun, but it was incredibly peaceful and beautiful. This particular cemetery also happens to be the resting place for some famous Danes, including Hans Christian Anderson and Søren Kierkegaard. On the other side of the cemetery, we emerged from the peaceful green space into chaos - work crews were setting up for Distortion, a street music festival held annually in Copenhagen. The first day's events were taking place on the streets of the Nørrebro neighborhood, and festival-goers streamed into the area. We took in the atmosphere and then continued to wander away from the mass chaos. Our next stop of the day was Torvehallerne market, another one of our favorite places in Copenhagen. Outside the buildings, fresh produce stands sold colorful fruits and vegetables alongside potted succulents. The inside contained a mix of products (e.g. chocolate, olive oil), grab and go snacks, trendy eateries, and beverage options (e.g. The Coffee Collective, beer). After wandering through the various stalls and examining the offerings, we bought some macarons for a snack. At this point, we had visited most of the central neighborhoods in Copenhagen: Nørrebro, Østerbro, City Center, Christianshavn, and Freetown Christiania. The main one we were missing was Vesterbro, which almost everyone had recommended we visit. So, Brett and I walked to Vesterbro to get a glimpse of Copenhagen's "hipster" neighborhood (check out #4 on this list of the world's most hipster neighborhoods). We walked around. It was definitely different, a bit grimier, than the squeaky clean Østerbro or city center. Vesterbro apparently used to be somewhat seedy not that long ago, and you can still see some traces of that. When describing Istedgade, one of the main streets in Vesterbro, the bartender that we met on Day 1 told us that the first few blocks "are all hotels and hookers". And he was totally right - sandwiched between the hotels were strip clubs and adult shops - but, after a few blocks, we began to see trendy restaurants, cafes, and shops. For dinner, we walked back to Torvehallerne and bought food from Palaeo. We also bought oranges from a produce stand and took them to Ørstedsparken, a park nearby with a nice walking path and a lake in the middle. It was filled with Danes enjoying the good weather, picnicking, and drinking wine and beer. After we walked back to our apartment, we spent the rest of the night enjoying wine and chatting with our Airbnb hosts, an Italian couple studying in Denmark. It was a lovely experience to spend time with people who live in Copenhagen and learn about what daily life is like there. We loved our stay and loved meeting Artu and Bertina. Day 4On our final day in Copenhagen, we returned to Original Coffee, where Brett studied for the bar exam while I got asked to be in a Danish historical film. I was reading and enjoying my coffee when a man came up and asked if I had ever done any acting. He went on to explain that he was casting for some sort of historical film about a Danish king, and that the Danish king marries a Slavic princess, for which I apparently had the perfect face. I had to tell him that we were leaving later that day and was unable to help him out. I'm still 50/50 on whether he was really trying to cast me for a movie or it was some sort of scam. Either way, we laughed about it for awhile after.
From Original Coffee, we rented bikes and joined the hoards of Danes who use bicycles as their main form of transportation. They used to have a bikes available for free in the city, but that program no longer exists. Instead, there is a city bike rental program called Bycyklen, which costs 25 dkk (~$3.82) per hour. You can pick up a bike at one location and return it to any stand around the city. Lets be clear about one thing: biking in Copenhagen is serious business. The bike lanes are well separated from the traffic, and some of the traffic lights have separate bike lights to indicate stop and go. It is like a bike highway, with people merging from side streets and fast bikers passing on your left. We braved the bike lanes and had a fast-paced but enjoyable ride to Copenhagen Street Food for lunch. There, we ate Thai food and looked out over the harbor one last time before returning to the apartment, gathering our things, and heading to the airport for our flight to Budapest. It was sad to say good-bye to Copenhagen, a city that we really loved exploring. In just a few short days, we had eaten well, walked a lot, seen beautiful architecture, met friendly people, drank wonderful coffee, walked through a street festival, and much more. Based on our time in Copenhagen, it's not hard to see why Danes are often called "the happiest people on Earth."
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AuthorMy name is Alyssa Good and I have a passion for travel, adventure, culture, and new experiences! I focus on budget friendly travel, trip planning resources, and seeking out new experiences. Archives
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