Two Days in Copenhagen

Copenhagen was the second stop on our blitz through Scandinavia. It was a short and uneventful flight on SAS from Amsterdam and the added bonus was that this is where we met up with our older daughter Nan, our son-in-law David and our granddaughter, Savannah.

The Copenhagen airport is large, modern and was very busy when we arrived. We had decided to take the metro into the city and made our way to the ticket machines. The only surprise was that the machine issued one ticket for two people. Evidently that's what it's supposed to do and no one checked it anyway.

The ride into the center of town took about 20 minutes and cost about $5 each. It was a short five-minute walk to our hotel. Thank heavens for Google maps!

As we arrived late morning, we checked into the hotel, had lunch and met Nan and her family. After lunch we decided to walk to The Little Mermaid, the bronze statue by artist Edvard Eriksen made famous by Hans Christian Andersen. It's a bit of a hike on foot (about 15 - 20 minutes), but the hop-on, hop-off bus also stops there. We were told that the artist used a ballerina as his model, but that she refused to pose nude, resulting in the head and face of the ballerina but the body of the sculptor's wife!

On the way back from The Little Mermaid, we walked through the square around the Amalienborg Palace, home to the Danish royal family. The square and buildings felt a little austere to me, but if we had been in Copenhagen one more day, I would have liked to visit the palace and the museum. This is a panorama of the square with Katie in the foreground.

This is one of the (female!) guards and a statue of King Frederik V who reigned in the mid-1700's.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent strolling down the Strøget, Copenhagen's pedestrian shopping area and one of the largest in Europe. It's home to luxury stores such as Boss, Gucci and Louis Vuitton as well as small specialty shops, restaurants and street performers. It was fun to take it all in and stop in some of the shops.

Day Two

The next morning Katie, Nan, David and Savannah did more shopping and I visited the Rosenborg Castle and the Round Tower.

Built in the early 17th century by King Christian IV, the Rosenborg Castle is small as far as castles go, but it's beautifully preserved and contains exquisite furniture, tapestries, statues, art work, Venetian glass and the crown jewels. The castle was used (primarily as a summer residence) for only one century. Frederick IV eventually moved into a more up-to-date residence and dedicated Rosenborg to the royal collections which is why they are so rich and well-preserved today. The admission price was about $17 which I thought was reasonable. To top it off, it's set in King's Garden, a lovely oasis in the center of Copenhagen.

From there I walked about 10 minutes to the Round Tower. Built as an observatory in the 17th century, it's no longer used by scientists but it remains popular among amateur astronomers and affords a nice view of the old part of Copenhagen from the outdoor platform at the top. You walk up about 700 feet in a spiral motion. The admission price was about $3.75.

We had decided to meet at Torvehallerne, a food market in the western part of the central city. It consists mainly of indoor stalls with all types of food, wine, kitchen products and delicacies. There's also an outdoor market, primarily with flowers and produce as well as outdoor food stalls. We had fun looking at all the common and uncommon food and had a good lunch outside as it had become a beautiful day.

Delicious veggie sliders! ↑

Later that afternoon Katie and I took a canal cruise. It was fun to see Copenhagen from a different perspective, especially the beautiful Opera House.

The Opera House as seen from the water. They hold diving competitions from the roof; I can't even imagine!

The spires in Copenhagen are so varied and interesting!

Above is a newly-constructed mixed-use building for both commercial and residential use.

When we were researching the trip, we realized that Malmo Sweden is just a stone's throw from Copenhagen. An opportunity to pin another country and to get a taste of Malmo! So we decided to have dinner in Malmo on our last night in Copenhagen. The best way to get there is by train over the famous Oresund bridge. Although it's not inexpensive ($27 R/T), it's a fast and convenient way to go from one country to the other. It seemed to take much less than the 35 minutes everything we had read indicated. We took our passports, but were never asked for them. We knew we wanted to walk through the old section of Malmo, or Gamla Staden, and it's a quick walk from the train station over the river.

We enjoyed walking through the main square, Stortorget. I had anticipated more people, but we had it almost to ourselves.

This is the Malmo Radhaus, or town hall, build in the mid-16th century. Quite an imposing building!

Three generations!

Lilla Torg, a small and picturesque square just off Stortoget, is where we had dinner. It's surrounded by some beautiful old buildings.

That ended Day Two. We were glad we took this side trip to get a small taste of Malmo.

Hotel Bethel

What a find; it exceeded my expectations! It overlooks the Nyhavn canal, one of the most picturesque locations in Copenhagen. I had requested a room with a view and a view we had (see the photo at the beginning of this post which was taken from our room)! The hotel consists of the brown brick building below as well as the yellow one. We were the left three windows just below the top floor in the yellow, more modern one. The room was lovely and the bathroom was modern with a great shower. At $160/night through Expedia, it was a bargain.

Breakfast was included in the price of the room and there was free coffee in the lobby.

Copenhagen is a modern, cosmopolitan city with a lot of history. It was Katie's favorite of the three cities we visited. It's clean, the people are very friendly and as in other cities in Scandinavia, they speak beautiful English. I couldn't get enough of the colorful buildings along the Nyhavn canal. It was also fun to look out at 10:30 pm and see a little bit of daylight!

From our canal cruise perspective...

Imagine my delight when I saw these two bits of chalkboard wisdom at the Torvehallerne market. They sum it up...

➜ Top Tips

• Now that I've had the privilege of visiting Copenhagen, I'd spend a minimum of three days; there's plenty to do.

• Stay on the canal. Yes, it's the tourist area, but where else would you have that beautiful, iconic view?

• Take the canal cruise; you'll see a lot of interesting aspects of the city.

• Be sure to visit the Torvehallerne market!