At the beginning of this year, I mentioned how excited I was about a particular city break that I'd been thinking about.
Copenhagen is somewhere I have been wanting to visit for a long time now, and in the spirit of being a little more adventurous, and seizing moments of joy, I decided to just go ahead and book it. Go me! I'm becoming quite adept at this 'seizing' lark. And I am so incredibly glad that I did.
Copenhagen is beautiful. The colourful buildings are delightfully pretty, there are so many green spaces, and the canals...
Not to mention the bakeries :)
The city simply has a great feel about it. And, also, a lot of bikes! The cycle lanes even have their own traffic lights.
We arrived in the evening and enjoyed a short walk around the city streets so that we could find our bearings. Our hotel was fairly central, which meant everywhere we wanted to see was conveniently within walking distance. The following morning, after stopping at a pavement cafe to enjoy a delicious breakfast of coffee and pastries, we visited the Rundetaarn, or The Round tower. The Tower was finished in 1642, and it is a fantastic way of taking in a 360° view of the city. To reach the top, we walked up a tiled, spiral ramp, then there was a short, narrow staircase to access the viewing platform. From there we could see right across the rooftops of Copenhagen and over as far as Sweden. Lily and I tried to count how many Danish flags that we could see, but we lost track - there were so many.
Our next stop was Nyhavn. This is the area often seen on images of the city because of it's colourful buildings and bustling cafes. We'd been told it can get 'rammed' there, but it was actually okay when we visited. From Nyhavn, we took a canal trip on one of the tourist boats, and enjoyed an informative and, at times, rather amusing commentary about the buildings we could see. And I must mention the need to be seated each time we went under a bridge - they were very low!
From Nyhavn, we continued walking towards Frederik's Kirke, an 18th century church, which boasts the largest dome in Scandinavia. And it was impressive. They ask for complete silence while you are inside the church, so it was a very special experience. But I think I preferred the view from outside, as it is approached from Amalienborg, the residence of the Danish royal family.
Much less impressive, however, was the Changing of the Guard at Amalienborg, but at least we can say we watched it ;)
A little further along the waterfront we visited The Little Mermaid statue. Inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, the bronze and granite statue, although restored several times, has been there since 1913. A lot of people I spoke to were quite underwhelmed by it, but I found it really quite lovely. I think they expected it to be much larger than it actually is.
We'd been walking all day, so by early evening it was time to go back to our hotel and get showered, before going out to dinner for some delicious pizza and pasta at a lovely Italian restaurant that we had come across earlier in the day. It was still pleasantly warm, so we sat outside to enjoy our meal. We were lucky that we had such great weather for our visit. Apparently, it rains a lot in Copenhagen.
The next day was a little more relaxed. We had a mooch around various shops and visited the beautiful Botanical Gardens. The gardens contained so many different varieties of plants and were incredibly well cared for. We didn't go inside, as part of the Palm House was closed off for renovation.
Then we went on to Rosenborg castle, which houses the Danish Crown Jewels. Again, the gardens there were beautifully maintained and it was lovely to sit for a while and just enjoy the sunshine.
Our trip was over all too soon, but I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed every moment. I'd love to return to Copenhagen one day. Visit some of the museums, climb the spire at Vor Frelsers Kirke, and maybe even go for a swim in the harbour.
Back soon.
J. X
