We headed out of Malmo straight onto the Øresund Bridge which connects Sweden to Denmark. There is an expensive toll to pay (around £100 for a motorhome our size) but it is quite a scenic way to cross over to Copenhagen. The bridge actually goes underground (or rather underwater through a tunnel) for the last section.
Our parking place for the next two nights was at a marina not far from the bridge. We had read it gets very busy so recommends getting there early - good advice as it was heaving with vehicles when we arrived, but we were lucky with our timings and found a space someone had just vacated. It was a bit of a shock after the spacious parking layouts in Sweden where they generally leave 4 metres between vehicles for safety reasons. We were lucky if there was half a metre between us and the neighbouring vehicles in this one.
We got the Bromptons out and cycled the five miles into the centre. Copenhagen ranks as the world’s best capital city for cycling and we whizzed in on cycle lanes the whole way. It’s not entirely relaxing though, as while the vehicles are courteous to cyclists, the local cyclists go at high speed and aren’t impressed with dithery tourists. More than 50% of Copenhageners cycle to and from work each day. The first section took us along the marina where there was a Paddle Boarding competition in progress, then the start of the Copenhagen Iron Man area where participants were registering for the race taking place the following day. We realised they were swelling the number of motorhomes in our car park.
We had visited Copenhagen for a weekend in 2010, and while we remember enjoying it, we don’t remember being totally dazzled by it, although the weather had been unseasonably cold and wet. This time, with the sun shining and the place absolutely buzzing we totally fell in love with the place. In fact, it may have knocked Stockholm off our top spot. The buildings looked amazing with the waterways running through the heart of the city. It was also the final day of the Pride week, and we could see everyone was building up for a big party that evening.
We had booked ourselves on a three hour city bike tour with BikeMike. He has been taking guests from all over the world on his Copenhagen tour for over 16 years, so we thought for our first afternoon it we be a great way to get orientated and get some tips on what we might like to visit. We have to say we were a bit worried when we arrived at the start point to see how many people he was taking out onto the packed streets that afternoon, but we needn’t have worried as he brilliantly managed keeping the group together and ensured everyone had heard what he had just said about each site. He was very engaging and entertaining, and we were soon brimming with fun facts about the city he loves. Here I hand over to Colin for his top Copenhagen/Denmark facts:
Children don’t start school until the age of 7 as it is believed that they should learn by play and no child under the age of 12 gets homework. This has developed more creative and inventive young people.
Not surprisingly, based on the above fact, Copenhagen has more playgrounds than any other city in the world.
Everyone in Denmark lives within 30 miles (52km) of the sea.
The Danish use the word Hygge to describe creating a cosy feeling of togetherness with family and friends, which adds to peoples feeling of wellbeing and warm atmosphere.
Denmark is a very flat society where nobody if thought as better than the other. There are no public schools, so the rich kids go to the same schools as everyone else.
Mike took us around the key landmarks in the city and pointed out many eateries and drinking holes he liked. He also mentioned that most of the fabulous buildings were built in the reign of King Christian IV of Denmark who ruled for nearly 60 years between 1588 to 1648 (the longest in Scandinavian history). He was also a major reformist for Danish nationals and improved the defences of Denmark which was always having fisty cuff with their neighbours. Christian IV liked his food and drink, and his courtiers would be given 10 litres of alcohol a day, with guests being given 25 course dinners accompanied with 10 litres of beer and wine. His statue in Copenhagen shows him with a large beer gut (his waist measurement was over 2 metres in latter years), and Mike referred to him throughout his tour as the ‘Big Belly King.’ In fact, at 6ft 7 his was a huge character all round.
One of the last sites was the Little Mermaid statue which sits on a rock on the waters edge. When we were last here in 2010, she was on her holidays at the Shanghai Expo. We remembered watching her on the screen where she normally sits on a live transmission. Mike said originally, they had put a Chinese statue there to replace her, but the tourists were all so outraged she wasn’t there, they had to take that down and put the live cam screen up.
As we were on our own bikes, we peeled off from the tour group as they headed back to the finishing point. We called in at the Torvehallerne food hall and market which Mike had said was a place the locals like. As you’ve read before, we are a bit partial to this type of food hall and had a walk around drooling over the fish, meats and Danish open sandwiches on offer. We had a drink outside, then continued on back to the Nyhavn area, the old commercial dock where the buildings are now renovated with colourful facades, most being tourist restaurants. It was packed with tourists, but we found outdoor seats at the front of a restaurant where we could have a drink and watch the world go by for half an hour.
We then headed to the nearby Broens Street Food Market (another Mike recommendation) which has a fabulous setting by the water and had a wide range of street food on offer of which we sampled a few.
It was getting dark as we cycled back to our parking area which made for an exciting ride following the route our sat-nav took us, through areas we didn’t know. Back in Lo11y, there was loud music coming from nearby – we realised it was from the port area. We felt sorry for the Iron Man competitors who has an early start the following day as the music went on past 4am, with a spell of a very upset angry young man yelling and swearing.
It was another glorious sunny day the next morning. We had the day planned to cycle back into the centre and have more time to look at areas we’d passed on the tour the day before. We passed the starting point for the Iron Man – the tail enders of the swimmers were still coming out of the water having done a 2.4 mile swim. They next had to do a 112 mile bike ride, then a small matter of a 26.2 mile run through the heart of the city. Luckily the weather seemed perfect – very little wind and not too hot.
We cycled through the Christiania district (where we had come though in the dark the previous night) as it look very quirky. This is a self-governing town within Copenhagen that has around 1,000 residents who don’t pay taxes and run the place by their own laws. There are some nice buildings there, many built by the original hippies who settled here in the 1970’s, and while there are tourist cafes there and it is on the tourist trail it was famous for being the place to buy cannabis (which is illegal in Denmark), but this has been totally stopped from April this year as a joint effort with the residents and police to crack down on the escalating drug crime going on.
We made our way across to the trendy residential area of Nørrebro. The streets were lively with locals having Sunday brunch, and there were flea markets everywhere. We have noticed these are popular all over Scandinavia, where people set up stalls on the street to sell used clothes, shoes, toys and household objects. Again, this demonstrates how further advanced these countries are in recycling. Vintage and second-hand stores are increasing in the UK, but we’re way off the levels we’ve seen in Scandinavia.
We headed back to the Torvehallerne food market and had tasty open sandwiches for lunch. We then went up the tower in the Christiansborg Palace. It is free to go up in the 106m tower, but there was a bit of a queue and airport style security to get through. We were rewarded with good views over the city. There was also an exhibition room in the tower with statues and bizarrely some projected white doves. When we came out the Iron Man runners were on the streets. We made our way to a waterside area with wooden decks to sit on and take in the views. There were many locals around there relaxing in the sunshine.
Our next destination isn’t what you’d normally consider a tourist attraction. CopenHill is a combined heat and power-to-energy plant, that has been combined with recreational activities including a rooftop café, an artificial ski slope and a rock-climbing wall. The building is an architectural landmark in the city and can be seen from quite a distance. Hidden behind the walls are furnaces and turbines that convert 440,000 tons of waste annually into enough clean energy to deliver electricity and heating for 150,000 homes. The metal panels on the walls are designed to collect rain water which is used to cool the plant. This all fits in with Copenhagen’s goal to be the world’s first carbon neutral city by 2025. Just mind blowing.
Not far from here is the Reffen Street Food Market, billed as the largest street food market in the Nordics with food stalls from all over the world. It was a beautiful sunny Sunday evening, so we sat in a deck chair taking it all in with a drink before having the tough decision on what type of food did we fancy.
We headed back to Lo11y where we were happy to find it was quieter that evening. We’d thoroughly enjoyed our short time in Copenhagen. It’s definitely a place we could enjoy living, like most of the clean, cycle friendly cities in Scandinavia.
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