A Quick Dip Into Copenhagen

Our stop in Copenhagen was brief, barely three days, but we managed to cram a ton into it.  A few weeks before Sarah and I had been debating which was our favourite capital city that we'd visited on this trip.  I think Copenhagen makes a good claim to knocking Sarajevo off its top spot.

We were visiting because Sarah's stepbrother Ryan and his partner Brenna live there.  Which gave us another good reason to minimize the costs of visiting this expensive (even if it is the least expensive in Scandinavia) country.  We arrived at Ryan and Brenna's place and after a flurry of hellos and hugs and The Best Coffee in Copenhagen™ we set out for our first day of exploration.

Over our few days we saw heaps of historical architecture, the city's famous canals, local icons like the Little Mermaid (about which I must say, I agree with the many who can't see what the fuss is about), and the outside of the famous Tivoli amusement park.

We had a really lovely walk along the quiet backwaters and old fortifications that surround the Christiana free zone.  The free zone is an enclave that effectively operates as a community outside the Danish and city governments, where architectural and artistic experiments are part of the landscape, where marijuana is sold freely despite being illegal in Denmark, but where messing with the quiet enjoyment of residents and visitors is deeply frowned upon by the community's residents.

We drank quite a bit of beer, including at the original Mikkeller bar, but more significantly at the Kiosk, a dairy right near Ryan and Brenna's that had a spectacular array of both Danish and international beers for sale.  Oddly, although they have an outdoor seating area for those buying food or soft drinks, but not for those buying beer. While drinking on streets or in parks is entirely legal, only licensed restaurants and cafes can serve alcohol on site, so the tables are covered with stickers in many languages suggesting beer drinkers cross the street to the boulevard park about ten metres away.

Only one museum made it on the agenda (primarily because it was free entry day), but we were both big fans of the Thorvaldsens Museum, displaying a huge array of marbles by one of Denmark's most renowned artists (and, perhaps even cooler and more unusually, many of the plaster casts that were used as models for the marble sculptures displayed elsewhere in the gallery).

But probably my favourite parts of Copenhagen were in and on the canals/harbour.  Swimming is understandably popular amongst the locals, and while there's a fair bit of boat traffic, there are loads of official swimming spots in protected areas around the city.  The weather was just warm enough to make the cool water nice in the bright sun, but very chilly when it was hidden by cloud or buildings in the late afternoon.

But possibly even more memorable than the swimming was the cruise through the canals on a "picnic boat", small electric motored craft with bench seats and a central picnic table that locals rent to go for a cruise complete with self catered food and drink.  

I guess I'll finish by thanking Ryan and Brenna for the picnic cruise in particular, and just got being such lovely hosts during our short visit to Copenhagen generally.