Our trip to Copenhagen was booked to be a flying visit (yes we flew over, no, this wasn’t an intentional pun), as we intended on spending 2 days there over a bank holiday weekend. However a delayed flight out significantly cut into what short, precious time we had.
When we got to our hotel, we quickly freshened up and began wandering towards Copenhagen’s city hall, as there was a cool statue I wanted to see nearby (pics will be supplied later). Whilst admiring the city hall, and Tivoli Gardens opposite (the third oldest still operational theme park in the world), we were gripped with the obscurity of Danish statues. First up was some sort of boar wrestling a dragon outside of the City Hall, beside City Hall is a statue of Little Mermaid author Hans Christian Anderson.
A short walk from here is Dante’s Plad, a small square named in honour of Italian philosopher Dante Alighieri. Here is home to perhaps the strangest statue I’ve ever laid eyes on. Sculpted by Jens Galschiøt in protest of a construction company building carparks in historic parts of Copenhagen, with one planned underneath Dante’s Plad.
After leaving Dante‘s Plad, we set forth to peek at Christiansborg Palace, where the Danish Parliament sit, although the palace is also used by the Dane royal family too.
In the middle of the canal that separated the Palace from “mainland Copenhagen” is another interesting statue, paying homage to the Danish folk story of Agnete and the Merman, depicting a Merman and his sons begging Agnete to return to sea, Agnete being a human who entered the world of Merpeople, had a family, and sought to return to land once more.
After our statue scoping, we decided to seek out a bar to relax a little in. We tried one on Højbro Plads, before opting for Taphouse a bit further into the city, boasting 61 different craft beer taps at any time. We were overwhelmed with choice.
After Taphouse, we ventured towards Ørstedsparken, and stopped into a shop solely selling variations of rubber ducks. C3PO duck? Check. Donald Trump duck? Check. Lego duck? Check. Pikachu duck?… you get the drift.
We eventually ended our night in Barkowski, a bar with an assorted crowd of young and older clientele, and mingled with some locals.
The next morning, we got up and early to go see The Little Mermaid. The weather was horrible on our Saturday, which was unfortunate as we’d hoped to do lots of exploring in the city.
We sought shelter how we know best, in an Irish bar, and then opted for the highly rated Gasoline Grill to grab a burger. I try to seek out the best burger in every city I visit, and often they don’t live up to the hype, however Gasoline Grill was a deliciously juicy burger filled with flavour. A truly top tier burger.
When the rain finally began to break, we walked to Nyhavn, famous for the coloured houses on the seafront, it makes Whitehead look like a poor fan fiction of Nyhavn. The area has a great buzz with bustling restaurants, cafes and tourist shops packed out.
We ventured onwards from Nyhavn to Freetown Christiana, a self governed area of Copenhagen founded by anarchists where “anything goes”, which has led to many drug dealers setting up camp here amongst squatters and niche start up businesses. The area is home to approximately 1,000 permanent residents, and was built on a former military base.
We waited at a start up brewery and people watched for a while before deciding to venture back towards the city centre.
On our way back, we made a quick stop at the bar, Fingerbøllet, on Amager island. Here we observed some regulars playing an unusual game on a pool table, the game is a variant of Keglebillard called Skomager, where you attempt to knock over pins with the white balls, after hitting the red ball with the cue. You get various point scores for how many pins you knock. It was rather fascinating to observe.
After watching numerous games of Skomager, we went back to our charming hotel (Axel Guldsmedsen – I really recommend staying there should you ever visit Copenhagen) and called it a night.
Our short and sweet trip was over – but there’s still so much more I’d like to explore there. The weather prevented us from seeing Tivoli Garden, and there’s so many food markets and craft breweries we simply didn’t have time to go explore, not to mention taking the train over to neighbouring Malmo in Sweden… I guess we’ll have to do that next time, and there most definitely will be a next time in wonderful Copenhagen.
