Week 7: Copenhagen
On Thursday we picked the girls up from school early and headed to the airport for our flight to Copenhagen. I got the opportunity to travel to Copenhagen in 2009 with my Aunt Betsy, who lived there for a year in college. We chose Copenhagen for its reputation for kid-friendliness, family-friendly activities, relatively small size, easy public transport and the fact that Jake wanted to prioritize a Scandinavian country in our travels. It did not disappoint!
We stayed right next to Nyhavn in a central part of town. Our apartment had two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and the steepest set of stairs the girls have ever seen. They got to elevate their room-sharing game to…bed sharing! Lots of scaffolding around why we “never touch our sister when she is sleeping.” On the second night, Eden reported that Hadley had a nightmare and so she offered her her leg (???) to cuddle for support. It was a surprising success!
We spent Friday morning exploring Nyhavn, the 17th-century waterfront district known for it’s colorful buildings and canals. We took lots of pictures “for Betsy” and enjoyed some delicious pastries. Get a danish when in Denmark, right?
From Nyhavn, we hopped onto a one-hour canal tour that weaved passed Amalienborg Palace (residence of the Danish Royals), the Opera House, Christiansborg Palace and of course, the Little Mermaid Statue. We each had our own headset to listen to the tour. Hadley listened for about 30 seconds and then put on her hat and pretended she was a pirate for the rest of the tour. Eden listened for maybe 10 minutes, but was happy enough just sitting on the boat and letting Jake and I listen to the audioguide. I’ll call it a win!
Often on trips Jake and I will switch off exploring on our own during the girls’ quiet time. Jake took Friday to further explore Nyhavn and try a traditional Danish smorresbrod (open-faced sandwich) with herring. His review was….not positive. I took Saturday’s quiet time to go on a trek to find the famous cinnamon rolls at the oldest bakery in Copenhagen called Sankt Peders and do a little shopping in the famous Strogen district. Strolling european streets with a pastry and cappuccino is simply the best.
We spent Friday afternoon enjoying Tivoli gardens, an amusement park and beautiful garden built in 1843 and frequented by Hans Christian Anderson and Walt Disney in their day. The Disney parks were apparently inspired by Tivoli, which was easy to see. The entire garden felt like whimsy encapsulated. We had a magical afternoon exploring the garden, which included rides the girls actually enjoyed (again, they are NOT ride kids).
Our favorite ride was the “Flying Trunk” in which you sit in a trunk (similar feel to the Peter Pan ride at Disneyland) and “fly” through Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytales. We all loved it so much that we immediately rode it again.
Jake and I tried to coax the girls to try some more exciting rides, to which they basically told us fat chance. Worth a try! Every single part of Tivoli is wonderfully detailed and enchanting. It was worth a visit for the flowers alone, in full bloom in May. One of Jake and I’s prime observations of Tivoli was the high volume of fancy cocktail bars. There were many Danish adults visiting the garden just for the food and atmosphere (or at least, I assume they weren’t also riding the rollercoasters). I get it!
Speaking of food, Tivoli is well-known for great food including a food hall with more than 20 local restaurants inside. Minus the decision fatigue, this was our kind of scene!
Saturday morning we walked to the Rosenberg castle and the adjacent King’s Garden, complete with a dragon-themed playground. Next to horses, dragons are their favorite “animal” and a common context for their imaginative play. They had a blast “training their dragons” and completing the visually-appealing minimalist obstacle courses that completely fit my Danish design stereotype.
We bought tickets to tour the Rosenberg Castle and gave in to the girls’ requests for crowns so that they could pretend to be princesses on the tour. The castle was built by the Danish King Christian IV in the 17th century and was inhabited by several royals in the few hundred years to follow. Some of the highlights included the Knight’s Hall, which held the coronation thrones, the royal potty and the royal high chair.
We also popped down to the Treasury to see the Danish crown jewels. Our favorite part was this emerald set, which is known as the finest emerald set in the entire world. Even Eden looked at it and said “whoa, those are the prettiest things I’ve ever seen!”
We were also amused by this set, which had a note on it saying that the earrings were currently being worn by one of the Danish royals and would be returned shortly.
We strolled (and I do mean strolled- both girls insisted on riding in the stroller together, which is quite a challenge on cobblestone streets!) over to Torvellane—a giant open-air market with fruit/veggie stands, cafes and food trucks—for lunch. Have you ever seen so many tomatoes in one place? While I took this picture, cranky Eden said “why on earth would you want to photograph world’s most disgusting food?” Way to yuck my yum, Eden!
After quiet time, we embarked on a walk down the Stroget to the flagship Lego store. Legos were created in Billund, Denmark (a couple hours north of Copenhagen) in 1932. I learned that the word “lego” is an abbreviation of two danish words “leg godt” which means “play well.” Who knew? We certainly play well with legos often, so this was an especially exciting activity for the girls. We got to make our own custom lego figures and the girls each picked out a set to take back to Munich. Eden selected the 3 in 1 Dragon/Phoenix/Serpent set and Hadley went for the Moana set. She will very proudly tell you that she was allowed to choose a set "for 5 year-olds."
Dinner was at Pincho Nation, a unique circus-themed tapas restaurant. Yep, you read that correctly! It was also completely self-service via an app which we didn’t hate. The girls were each given a box of popcorn when we entered and this sugar bomb of a drink, topped with cotton candy.
Our flight didn’t leave until the late afternoon on Sunday, so we spent a lovely morning exploring the National Museum of Denmark. I will say that natural-history type museums generally bore me, but it’s not everyday you get to see artifacts from the Viking age. The best part was the middle-ages, viking-themed children’s section, which the girls spent almost THREE hours in. Jake and I took turns exploring the rest of the museum on our own.
We finished off our trip in Nyhavn at a traditional Danish restaurant called Hyttefadet. It was extremely cozy and had an old sailor vibe to it. We shared a selection of smorresbrod (no herring this time!) and a cheeseboard with some Danish beer. A perfect way to end our trip!
Cultural Observations: Danish Edition
Pharmacy: Unfortunately I was very sick last week and needed to go to the Danish Apoteket for some cold medicine. In most European countries you can’t just walk in and buy yourself medicine. You have to actually talk to a pharmicist, explain (justify?) your symptoms and then they recommend products accordingly. The Danish pharmacist explained that they only use local medicine and don’t make combination medicines. She proceeded to pull out 5 different medications for each of my symptoms- 1 for coughing, 1 for a runny nose, 1 for congestion, etc and absolutely NOTHING to knock you out at night, which is what I actually went there for. Who knew I’d count NyQuil in the list of things missed from the US?
Jaywalking: This is more of a German-Danish comparison, but it’s quite notable in Munich that no one jay walks. Even on an empty street with zero cars around, your bus arriving at the bus stop, you do NOT cross the street without the approval of the little green man. Danes seemed more flexible/more similar to Americans in terms of rules so plenty of people jaywalked under reasonable circumstances. Eden, our rule-follower, HATES when we jaywalk. On a similar note, Germans are extremely polite and do not typically tell you when you’re violating a rule (though they do stare at you!). We did get called out for walking in the bike lane in Copenhagen- whoops.
Cigarettes: I never really thought about how rare cigarettes are in Bellingham/the US more generally, until we got to Munich and see people smoking ALL the time. Even at seven, Eden didn’t know the word “cigarette” and calls them “smoking pipes.” Used in a sentence, “Mama, why is the U-bahn track filled with smoking pipes?” I have no plans to correct her. We were happy to see hardly any cigarettes in Denmark.
As always, thanks for reading! Jake and I are currently in Venice and then I’ll head to Belgrade, Serbia on Wednesday for a conference. Jake will pinch hit the blog next week to share our Venice trip and visit with his family who are graciously watching the girls while we celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary (a couple months early). Ciao!