First week of January - 2017
Copenhagen excited us for a couple of reasons - its a bike friendly city where bicycle infrastructure is priority over vehicle, and it has a forward thinking approach towards energy and urbanisation.
Since the beginning of our travels, Scandinavia has always seemed like a unique part of Europe... Its painted as a modern place with some sort of ideal culture which the western world strives to be. Copenhageners are statically the happiest city in the world. It has nearly no crime, its less advertised from a travel perspective, and is apparently one of the most expensive places to visit in the world. Most travellers we've met throughout Europe have done the Italy, Spain, France, the UK, maybe throw in Switzerland, Austria and Hungry... but I can only count a couple who've been to Norway, Sweden, Denmark. So to pencil one of these places into our travel plans was pretty exciting!
Copenhagen for us was to be a link to get to Iceland. We'd always planned on been in Germany for Christmas, then to get to Iceland at some stage in the New Year to see the northern lights and experience those truely short European winter days. We had a few days up our sleeve and found a cheap flight from Copenhagen to Reykjavik, Iceland, so when we locked that in the rest was history.
How to get to Copenhagen? Fly, Train or Bus - book early enough and flights are less then $100pp... Train was costly but we found a 40Euro (for both of us) Flixbus from Berlin which was too good to pass up. Despite it taking 8hrs of daylight away from us, it was more important for us to save money then save time at this point.
As per usual the cost saving comes at an inconvenience cost - Flixbus usually has random pickup/drop off points which tend to be out in the sticks. Our departure was at Berlin Central Bus Station!!! However, Berlin Central Bus Station is pretty much at the end of a metro line - half an hour and 10Euros outside Berlin city centre... However compared to previous Flixbus pickup points, this bus station was a beauty and equiped with a mini McDonalds, and typical pay-to-enter European toilets.
We got to the station with time to spare, and plenty of other people were already in line waiting for the Copenhagen bus. After a bit of time had passed, and a nice chap came out to tell us our bus was going to be 30min late - no dramas except it was below zero degrees... Eventually a sizeable double decker Flixbus rolled in to what was predominantly middle eastern people in line, who went on to swamp the ticket inspector and bus driver as soon as the bus pulled up. After another 15 or so minutes of bag packing and communication issues between bus driver and travellers we were finally heading for Copenhagen.
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| The price of beer in Denmark is significantly more then Germany, these guys were stocking up on their way back to Copenhagen.The Ferry had its own supermarket with plenty of alcohol at German prices (a lot cheaper). |
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| Amy braving actually freezing, freezing cold winds on the ferry as the sun sets. |
On the ferry across from Germany we popped outside to take a few photos since it all felt pretty exciting. On deck it was freaking cold, felt like -16 and possibly at this point the coldest we've ever experienced!!!!
We had rolled into Copenhagen after it had experienced a North Sea storm which flooded parts of the city. Although there wasn't any evidence of the storm and everything seemed pretty low-key when we arrived. The Flixbus drop off was just a typical back street job a couple of k's from our AirBnB which made for a pretty chilly walk. Our hosts were a Romanian couple located just outside the city centre in a relatively new apartment building which we had full access to their kitchen, and coffee/tea supplied.
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| On our way to a walking tour on a calm, cold sunny morning. We were staying the left side of the river/bay, the city centre is on the right. Currently -10 degrees. |
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| In the centre of town, across from the City Hall Square is a neon thermometer gauge on the side of a building. Above the thermometer there is two gold statues of women - circa 1030s. One on a bicycle and one with an umbrella. Unfortunately the mechanism doesn't work anymore (neon works) but when it did, the statue which presented on any given day was to let locals know the forecast whether it be fine weather or wet. Despite the clear blue sky and sun, it was -6 degrees.... |
Copenhagen is the home of Carlsberg beer, Europes most disappointing tourist attraction - the little mermaid, Trvoli Gardens - the worlds second oldest amusement park (unfortunately shut during our visit/winter), Christiania - a self governing 'freetown' just outside the city centre. Amongst other things these were a few of the cheap things to see and do.
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| Trvoli Gardens - as close as we got... |
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| Nyhavn -17th century water front and entertainment district near the centre of town. Possibly the most photographed part of the city, the canal was built by Swedish POW's.The area is also famed for being the residence of Hans Christian Anderson (farm tale writer of The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling etc.) from 1845-1864. |
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| Opera house. She's a beauty! |
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| Saying G'day to Princess Mary! Stopping by the royal palace while walking around town. So laid back the Copenhagener's you can just roll on through the palace. Most days you can catch Mary or Fred riding or driving the kids to school. Or bump into them walking the dog around the areas. They don't get too bothered by the locals here everyone is pretty respectful in a typically Scandinavian way! |
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| Foreground - The little mermaid sculpture, Europes most disappointing tourist attraction because its so small... In the background an incinerator waste-to-energy power plant with a ski slope on its roof!! |
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| Traditional street hotdog with the lot! It was delicious! |
On our last day in Copenhagen we had a lazy morning which included a walk around and eventually a coffee and a train ride to North Zealand to Kronborg Castle - famous for being known as Elsinore in Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Its a pretty significant place in Northern Europe and is UNESCO listed and well looked after. There weren't many people about, maybe the cold weather. From the edge of the castle you can see Sweden 4km across Baltic Sea.
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| Sculpture of the castle layout and motes, walls etc. in the shape of a a crown. |
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| Frozen mote! |
On a snowy morning we walked over to Freetown Christiania, 34 hectares just outside of the city centre is an autonomous (one who gives oneself one's own law) neighbourhood with 900 residents. The area was a former military barracks, abandoned after WWII was settled by a few of the local hippies I suppose you could say. The fourth most popular place to visit according to Tripadvisor, its considered to be a pretty interesting since the Christiania people have their own set of rules independent of the danish government and their own flag. Its famous for its open cannabis trade, which is tolerated by the danish authorities. Hard drugs, bikie colours, stealing, guns, knives etc. have all been banned from the Freetown over the course of time.
Photography isn't allowed in the centre of the town, along the main drag know as Pusher Street - which was lined with barrel fires and a handful of men standing around them looking real shady. The vibe around the place was pretty strange, it was grubby and cold and pretty messy.
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| Plenty of street art on display around the town. |
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| Entrance to Pusher Street. The town flag is shown in the middle of the photo (red with three spots), there is a sign on the left saying no photos past that point. |
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| "you are now entering the EU" - cheeky note on the entry/exit sign of the little town. |
After a cold visit to Christina we headed into the city centre and spent the afternoon wandering around the National Museum which was full of pretty interesting scandinavian and human history which made for a quiet warm afternoon.
Thumbs up for Copenhagen.
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