Saturday 1 February 2014

Visit Copenhagen? Maybe I'm getting jaded...

It was my lovely husband's birthday last weekend. He's fond of travel so I popped onto friend internet to see where we could go on a cheap flight. Copenhagen looked good. I booked flights and a few weeks later we hopped on a plane.

Pros:
* Delicious food with some new tastes - we ate a cake with a creamy topping made with sea buckthorn berries.

* The royal family lives right in the centre of town and there's quite a nice museum with lots of royal history right next to their house.

* The National Museum has lots of interesting Viking things with all captions in English (and it's warm inside!)

Viking horns in National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen
They threw lots of things in a bog as sacrifices - helpful for future generations to ogle!
* Magasin du Nord is an attractive (and warm!) department store with good food at the restaurant in the basement. We had fried fish, dark rye bread, salad and chunky skin-on chips for dinner. I got a couple of fine merino wool cardigans for 50% off the normal price.

Magasin department store in Copenhagen
Magasin du Nord
Fried fish and chunky chips in Copenhagen
Yum dinner!
 * The free walking tour was a good way to orientate ourselves to the city and learn a bit of history. Two and a half hours outside in the wind was a bit much, though.

Walking tour in Copenhagen
Brrr!
Nyhavn New Harbour in Copenhagen
Nyhavn (New Harbour)
Frederik's church, Copenhagen
King Frederik's Church - he wanted somewhere posh to go on a Sunday so he built this.
* Everyone spoke English - helpful as we don't speak a word of Danish!

* Clean and safe - we felt perfectly safe walking around the city, in fact we were often the only pedestrians! There were a few people on bikes, but the city seemed reasonably empty of people (or maybe they were all huddling at home in the warm).

Cons:
* Cold! -4 with a -11 windchill and only a light dusting of snow on the second day to cheer us up (we like snow).
Icy river in Copenhagen
Icy river!
* Grey - Copenhagen seemed to a city made of grey pavements and squares, grey buildings and grey skies with hardly any trees or vegetation generally. There was a little more colour down by the harbour but where we were was a deserted grey plain with hardly even a pedestrian to break the monotony.

* Cost - we knew Copenhagen would be pretty expensive when it came to eating out, but it meant that I felt kind of hungry most of the time I was there as I didn't feel I could justify ordering enough food. We did manage to find a nice coffee chain called Baresso who did reasonably priced food and hot drinks. Coffee was definitely better in Copenhagen than in England - sorry England, you're just not great at coffee. On the plus side of the cost issue, our hotel was a good quality budget hotel for a very reasonable price.

* The Tivoli amusement park was closed for the winter. I'm not normally an amusement park kind of girl, but this one opened in 1843 and looked (from the outside) pretty amazing.

Gargoyle sculpture on dry fountain in Copenhagen
Dry fountain with Tivoli in the background
All in all, I guess I'd give Copenhagen a six out of 10. It's not quite as good a European city break as somewhere like Bruges in Belgium, but it would probably get a better score from me in spring or autumn when it's not so cooooold! 

Any suggestions on where we should go next?

3 comments :

  1. I'd suggest Barcelona or Lisbon! Being cold really puts dent in a good time, especially when you aren't used to it.

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    1. Yes, more Spain is very high on the list. I'm thinking of seeing where in Spain or Portugal we can get a good holiday deal for Easter. (We went to Alicante last Easter and loved it).

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  2. I'd suggest Vienna, naturally! :-)

    Maybe it was too cold in Copenhagen during your viist, which could explain the 6/10? On the other hand - I spent soaked days in Hamburg, 2 hours non stop rain during an open air concert and still I fell in love with Hamburg. So weather is probably not the key.
    We are heading to Rome, for the first time ever. Forecast: rain! ^_^

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