For a kind of birthday weekend Rache organised a group of us to head to Copenhagen for the last bank holiday 
of May. The crew ended up being a bunch of girls – I tell you that sharing one bathroom between six women was certainly an interesting challenge. Thankfully I’m an evening showerer so I had the bathroom pretty much to myself (after various toilet/brushing teeth/removing make-up absolutions) and didn’t have to get up two hours earlier in the morning to get my turn at the bathroom. heh heh.
Before arriving in Copenhagen I didn’t know much about Denmark. I knew that (1) Copenhagen is the capital of 
Denmark (2) Denmark has Australia’s first genuine royalty: Crown Princess Mary who is married to the Crown Prince Frederik and (3) Copenhagen is one of the new big cities reknown for its amazing food. Its also known as being a happy country with friendly citizens right down to their electricity plugs and coins with love hearts on them…
None of the group had really done any research on the place so the weekend was a lot of ad hoc making it up as we go kind of weekend which was kind of cool.
| When? | End of May – last bank holiday 🙁 |
| Weather | Cold and sometimes sunny and sometimes rainy! |
| Tips | cOPENhagen CARD. One of the best things about the Card is the included free transport (including from/to the airport) which saves you having to buy a ticket each time you want to get on a bus, train or the metro. But in the main you’ll make use of the card to get you free entry to about 60 museums and attractions (including Tivoli Gardens) and various other sorts of discounts. There is a 24 hour card (currently 31 Euro) and a 72 hours card (currently 62 euro) which may seem expensive but it really does reduce the hassle of travelling around and also saves you from having to count how many trips you’ve got left, trying to calculate which zones you’ll need and also skimping on deciding which museum/attraction you want to pay for. To put it in perspective a 10 ticket pass for two zones of travel is about £18 and entry into Tivoli Gardens about £12 … |
| The Little Mermaid is a statue which has become quite a Copenhagen icon and is one of the most famous and popular sights in the city. If the only reason you’re coming to Copenhagen is to come see her then wait until after Expo 2010 is over in Shanghai or you’ll be disappointed as she has been placed on a temporary secondment there until at least December 2010 ! |
The Experience
Out of the group of six of us we all kind of arrived and left at different times with a couple arriving early Friday and leaving early Monday, a few , Phelon, Nic and I, arriving late Friday and leaving late Monday and one girl arriving and leaving in between so trying to figure out sights we wanted to see etc. was a king of juggling act but 
I think it worked out pretty well.
With Rache arriving ahead of Phelon, Nic and I she’d given us some pretty good instructions on how to get to our flat. Unfortunately we kind of didn’t read the instructions very well and blindly following a friend that Nic had met on the plane, a girl who was a local, we ended up on the right number platform but for the wrong type of transport (train instead of metro!) As a result, though with much fun and laughter and an opportunity to “drive” the train in the same way you’d “drive” the DLR, it was very late by the time we got the apartment and we had to resort to having a kebab as our first meal in Copenhagen. So much for fine food! Ha!
Day 1
Day 1 was a mish-mash of castles, fortresses, theme parks and Eurovision! We started the day with a visit to what the girls thought was a castle (misled by the Danish title Kastellet) which was actually supposedly one of the best preserved fortifications in Northern Europe. Coolly shaped like a star it proved to be a popular place for joggers and walkers alike. The fortification, like any good fortification, is surrounded by a lovely little bit of water which even for a grim start weather wise to the morning made for a very pretty setting. No fishing or parking allowed. When we arrived at the Kastellet there was also some sort of service going on (this actually further confused as we weren’t sure whether it was some changing of the guard ceremony!) For those that are interested there is a cute little windmill onsite too.
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The palace or Slot we were really trying to get to was Amalienborg because we wanted to watch the changing of the guards which takes place every date at noon. Oh boy I hope not all changing of the guards is this boring. There were a lot of (very young) guards but basically the changing of the guards seemed to just involve a lot of marching and standing in place then marching again. The most entertaining part was the “usher” responsible for making sure the crowd didn’t get in the way as the guards changed for the four buildings which make up the Royal Residence in Copenhagen.
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Lunch was long the very pretty canal area of Nyhavn – a gorgeous waterfront lined by some very pretty and colourful townhouses – before we hopped on to a boat for very good value canal tour. Lucky for us the weather improved significantly and we had some delicious blue sky for this part of the day. The canal tour was one of the highlights of our visit to Copenhagen and I loved seeing all the architecturally beautiful buildings of Copenhagen from the water. We saw all sorts of random things and I swear I even saw someone bungee-ing off a crane in the far distance! The canal tour took us past where The Little Mermaid should have been, past The Royal Library (this cool amazing black diamond type building) and even past Noma, the world’s number 1 restaurant and where I hope to dine in the near future! Be warned that the canal boat passes under some very low bridges!
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After we got off the canal tour Rache showed us something she’d discovered early on Friday and was one of the creepier sights of the weekend …
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I think they were called The Merman with Seven Sons and something to do with the Danish ballad “Agnete and the Merman” about a heartbreaking story of a human girl falling in love with a merman and having seven sons to him only to leave him after she gets homesick. A bit of a creepy setting underwater but an interesting bit of art nevertheless.
After a pit stop for ice cream we moved on to the thrill-seeking bit of the day – a visit to Tivoli Gardens! I love the fact the theme park is right in the centre of town! Tivoli is actually a really pretty theme park with heaps of restaurants, spaces to sit and relax and, for us adrenalin-junkies, just a few rides or twenty-seven (though only eight of them I would classify as being “wild”, as described by Tivoli.) By this stage Amy and Nick had also joined us on the trip and it was good numbers for the rides. Unfortunately we riders got a bit carried away and the non-riders got the boring end of the stick I’m afraid as we got a bit involved for a few hours. The funniest ride was The Roller Coaster – the ride attendant sits in the middle of the roller coast and spins around, dons a random face mask/funny glasses and just was generally entertaining through the ride – unusual!
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Tivoli Gardens is a really pretty venue. We even got to see the sister of The Little Mermaid (a small consolation for missing the real thing) and The Tivoli Boy Guards who were so cute!
We finished the night with … a night in front of the TV watching … the Eurovision final! It was actually a lot of fun and we had high hopes that the Danish entry was going to get through. It would have been party central if they had! Unfortunately the indie punk rock type German girl won instead. Its such a set up!
Day 2
Day 2 was started with an early-ish visit to Frederiksborg Castle which is a little way out from Copenhagen. I’ve only since discovered after googling Frederiksborg that its actually The Museum of National History! But at the time I was surprised by the collection of art etc. housed in the castle including the modern stuff on the top floor! My favourite part, however, had to be the gorgeous gardens. Just a shame we didn’t have more time to explore it cause we were rushing off to our next destination
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… The Royal Palaces (Amalienborg)! No changing of the guard this time – just a visit into the newly renovated palace where Princess Mary will soon be moving in. It was absolutely chucking it down by the time we got there and with only two umbrellas between the six of us I’m surprised none of us were any wetter. Thankfully the line was fairly reasonable (compared with the line we’d seen the day before) and, though I wouldn’t say it moved quickly, it moved quick enough.
Inside we were just happy to get out of the weather. Unfortunately we couldn’t take any pictures inside – the renovations were a mixture of traditionally and really non-traditional staff. Some of the wall paintings were interesting and quite unique.
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One of the advantages of having the Copenhagen Card this weekend was that we didn’t care how long we actually spent inside a museum/attraction as we were essentially getting in for free so when the Wonderful World of Hans Christian Andersen Museum turned out to be less wonderful than promised we weren’t overly disappointed. This translation of the Emperor’s Clothes did give us a bit of a giggle. Additionally, it did provide some cover from the constant drizzle and also a view point out to the main square where some kids were doing something odd with crates and crane.
Look! My name!
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Day 2 ended with dinner at Nyhavn followed by a visit to the Copenhagen Casino where we had to pay entry! Unfortunately luck wasn’t with me at blackjack but I had a sympathetic dealer and it was certainly interesting to play in non-English. Guess the sign for hit me, no thanks and I’m out of money is universal …
Day 3
We lost a few of the girls early to planes back to London in the morning so it was left to Nic, Phelon and I to fill in our day and boy did we do a good job. We fit in Copenhagen Zoo, the Circus Museum and Christianhavn – all within about five hours before we got the train to the airport.
We literally flew around Copenhagen Zoo. Maybe because the temperatures were so cool or for whatever reason the animals were all really lively and active. The brown bears and polar bears in particular were quite feisty with the brown bears running all over their cage and fighting each other and one of the polar bears actually posing for photos. It was well cool!
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Oh and I got to see a Tasmanian Devil – probably the first I’ve seen and we’re not even in Australia! I was also excited to see the Norman Foster designed Elephant House though I think the elephants looked a little sad and skinny.
The Circus Museum was an absolute laugh to get to. We had no idea where we were going as it seemed to be located in a small community with no indication at all that there was a Circus Museum in the area. We wouldn’t have gone at all if Nic hadn’t hated clowns so much (ha ha!) and we didn’t have the Copenhagen Card. But whilst we were there we made the most of the interactive parts:
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Christianshavn was an absolute revelation. For a start don’t expect it to be a tourist-friendly place – this is an actual community and they don’t appreciate gawkers or cameras. Christianshavn has a definite hippy feel to it and for a long time was known as a place where dr*gs were readily available and no taxes were paid! Things have moved on now and though dr*gs seemed readily available as we walked about maybe the stalls were more innocent than the seemed. At the very least the community now does pay tax. And community is absolutely the word I’d use – it’s a very close-knit community and I felt a great sense of sister/brother-hood. It was quite refreshing even if I do feel a bit like I’d walked on to the set of Mad Max or Waterworld!
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Other Thoughts
Copenhagen must be a relatively low-crime city because bikes were left all over the place unlocked and seemingly without care that they’d be stolen. It’s a great thing to see. Oh and make sure to leave room and time for their hot dogs or polser – delish.