Copenhagen was bathing in sunshine this time, which made it 100 times more appealing than the last time I was there when I got to experience torrential rainfall and winds that blew my umbrella away.
My wanderlust took me to the Rosenborg Castle in the morning, which was nice to visit, but I must admit that the Danish crown jewels were not very impressive. I was mostly impressed by the humongous secured door that locked them up.
As the smørrebrød place Ida Davidsen and the Glyptotek museum are 2 listings in the 1,000 Places to See Before You Die Book, I tried to squeeze them into my visit, without going out of my way to see them. I was on vacation after all, so I didn’t need any stress.
However, as I walked back from my visit to Rosenborg, I walked along the street
where I found
Ida Davidsen and when I saw there was no crowd, I quickly asked if they had a seat for lunch. Since I was an early-bird, they seated me right away and showed me their open sandwiches at the counter. The lady of the house was even spotted sporting red crocs as she went to the street to watch high school students who were partying on trucks to celebrate their graduation.
My sandwich had smoked salmon, fish eggs, and lots of wasabi mayo, which did funny things to my nose, but I loved it anyway. With my lips on fire I downed some sparkling water and left when the rest of the lunch crowd stepped into the door.
Now that I had provided myself with some sustenance, I made my way to the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe, the Strøget. Only two stores were particularly
interesting to me: Illums Bolighus, a 3-story design empire where I could easily bankrupt myself and the Royal Copenhagen store which sells fancy Danish china for which I have absolutely no need. Little tip: next to the Royal Copenhagen store there is a lovely café with a courtyard that is tucked away from the street with a great seating area where you can enjoy your cup of jo. All stores were having a sale, so this was good timing on my part, but since I wanted almost every item at Illums Bolighus, I had to drag myself out before I had to call shopaholics anonymous.
Food, shopping, and then it was time for some culture. I walked all the way past city hall, where I found the courtyard in the back of the building where city hall employees were sitting outside eating there lunches. They just brought their cafeteria serving dishes out and sat in the sun while downing beers and wine….that’s quality of life!
I walked along Hans Christian Andersen Boulevard, past Tivoli Gardens and before heading to the Glyptotek, I made a quick shopping stop at the Danish Design Center to buy some more sporks (a combo fork and spoon) for my utensil collection. Those things are my favorite to eat my yoghurt, so I had to buy some more. You don’t need to actually camp to use those, right?
There was a huge line at the back gate of Tivoli Gardens which consisted of all very young grungy looking kids, so I approached one of them and asked them what they were in line for. Turns out they were selling “pre-line” tickets for the famous Roskilde festival that would take place later this summer. Darn it, I think I’m gonna have to miss that one.
When I walked into the Glyptotek museum the first thing I noticed was how hot it was there. There was no AC and it was
86 degrees and it felt like there was no air. So what does a good Belgian do first? Correct…look for the café! I had yet to try a Danish beer, so I asked the waiter what he could recommend. He came back with a darker Tuborg beer and I enthusiastically put it to my lips only to find out I didn’t like it all that much. Oh well, I drank it anyway and it kind of went straight to my legs, so the rest of my cultural visit is all a little bit blurry to me. I walked through the museum like a slug because of the before mentioned beer and
because the guards instructed me to carry my little backpack in my hands instead of on my back. UGH. It’s a beautifully laid out museum, but I would only visit if the weather outside is rainy and you have no more shopping left to do.
On the other hand, the café is admittedly lovely and the wait staff was extremely nice to everyone.
After I walked back into the fresh air I made my way back to the Nyhavn area, but walking along a shopping street that runs parallel to the Strøget. I loved this street, which had sunny outdoor seating for your lunch date and quirky little stores. It’s much more authentic than the Strøget. I ended up buying some more Danish design drinking glasses at Stillleben, a ceramics/glass store which sells designs by local artists. Luckily all that stuff is breakable and not suitable to store in a suitcase, so I couldn’t really buy anything else.
I finally ended up at Nyhavn to do a final walk along the canal with its brightly colored bars and restaurants. Since I was kind of exhausted, I planted myself near
the canal surrounded by shopping bags and lots of people drinking beer. You can even get beer to go there. I didn’t have any more Danish cash on hand otherwise I could have bought one, but I decided they probably wouldn’t take Amex and the cab driver to the airport probably wouldn’t let me drink it in his car.
After some waiting around for a taxi I had ordered already early in the morning, but that failed to show up on time, I finally settled into the car and left downtown Copenhagen behind me. Luckily I had plenty of time to do some more shopping at the Kastrup airport, which in my opinion has some of the best shopping of any airport. My last money was spent on some Anton Berg chocolates with marzipan and Madeira, which I almost wanted to take back after I had given them to my granddad as they were so spectacular.
Not to worry, I will return to Copenhagen and stuff my suitcase once again with Danish goodies.
The other popular world traveler to speak at the Expo was Patricia Schultz, who put together the book “1,000 Places to See Before You Die.” This book contains the most amazing places and events to see on each continent and is almost 1,000 pages long.
