After spending two weeks traveling through Frankfurt, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest, and Krakow, I finally arrived at the last major stop on my 30 by 30 birthday trip – Copenhagen.
I flew in from Krakow on a late evening flight, and headed straight to the ATM as soon as I arrived in the airport. Most countries thus far on my trip, I’ve needed cash. In most of the previous countries, I couldn’t pay with card for meals under 20 Euro, and most taxi’s preferred cash as well. I took out what I thought would be enough, and then tried to buy a water using cash, and was met with the most confused stare from the cashier. Apparently, in Denmark and Sweden, no one really uses cash for anything. In fact, many of the places we went in Copenhagen actually had signs up on the register alerting guests that they refused to even take cash. Lesson learned – I ended up having to turn in almost all of the cash I took out when I got back to the states.
The main reason for adding Copenhagen to the end of my trip, was to spend some time with a friend of mine who was staying in the city for a month for work. She was actually living in Malmo, Sweden, which is just a quick 30 minute train ride away from the city. The trains run pretty regularly back and forth across the water, but only about every hour late at night, so if you’re flying in late, like I was, make sure to check the train times ahead of going outside. Fair warning for the rest of this post – I was having so much fun, that I didn’t take nearly as many photos as I normally do!
When you arrive in Sweden, you’ll need your Passport or ID card to show the guards before you head up the escalator. You’ll only need this entering into Sweden, not into Copenhagen, so be sure not to forget it!
It was about midnight by the time we arrived at the Hyllie Station in Malmo, and I was STARVING, so for the first time in my trip, we hit up a McDonald’s for a late night snack. Let me tell you, Swedish McDonald’s is where it’s at. They have a chicken sandwich that is just a giant chicken nugget, reminiscent of my all time favorite breakfast sandwich from McDonald’s in Japan. They also have chili cheese tots, which are essentially deep fried tots filled with cheese and green chili. I am not embarrassed to admit that I had at least 4 bags of chili cheese tots during my days in CPH.
The next morning we took the train back into Copenhagen for brunch at Mad & Kaffe’s, which is quite possibly, the cutest brunch I’ve ever seen (my friend found it by googling “cutest brunch Copenhagen”). It’s a tapas-style brunch, where you can choose 3, 5, or 7 items along with incredible juices, lemonades, and coffees. The chili avocado and the smoked salmon were my favorites. This is the most instagram-able brunch you will ever have, PLUS it tastes great.
About a block outside of the restaurant, we ran into this super adorable little book barn – people would come up and drop off or pick up a book, or sit on the bench to the right and read under the tree – it was so perfect!
After brunch, we walked down to the Nyhavn area, which is probably the most famous area/thing to see in Copenhagen. Along the canal are a ton of restaurants and bars with outdoor seating. It was an absolutely gorgeous day – one of the warmest they’d had in a while – so the canal was full of folks out on their boats enjoying the weather.
As we walked along the water towards the Little Mermaid Statue, we came across a replica of the Statue of David, along with a bunch of other beautiful sculptures.
The Little Mermaid statue is one of the top 5 things on every list of to-do’s in Copenhagen, but it’s actually quite small, and COMPLETELY overrun by tourists. I managed to get a photo without people in it, but it was pretty difficult. There are about 100 people in between me and the statue, and most people kept trying to climb up on the rock which really prevented anyone from getting good photos. It’s cool to see, but if you’re running low on time, it’s definitely something you could skip.
Walking back towards the city we strolled through Langelinie Park, with a beautiful church, fountains, and gardens. There were a lot of bees, so we didn’t snap nearly as many photos as we’d like. I tried to get a picture of myself in front of the gardens, but my friend yelled “BEE” loudly and recorded a video of me freaking out instead (thanks Kelsey).
Next we walked through the square at the Amalienborg, the queen’s winter residence. The square was pretty empty when we walked through, and the stone work is absolutely incredible. You an take guided tours of the inside, but we opted not to with the short amount of time we had. They also had a bunch of horse and carriage rides starting here, and a spot to stop and watch the guards, who similar to the guards in England, are dressed up and perform the changing of the guard every so often.
We continued walking over to the Copenhagen Street Food area – there were a ton of little walk up restaurants like the one above with food and lots of different non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. Most places had some sort of variety of a frozen beverage. We snagged a super delicious frozen lemonade before continuing our walk.
Next we headed over to Christiania, which is an area within Copenhagen that was declared as a free, autonomous society, separate from Denmark. Upon entering, you’ll immediately notice a difference from the rest of Copenhagen. There are no cars allowed within the small city, and the cobblestone streets are full of tourist trinket shops, bars, small cafes, and tons of stands selling different varieties of weed. Marijuana is illegal in Denmark, but not highly regulated within the streets of Christiania. There was no attempt to hide any of the stands, and most people were very openly smoking and drinking at the bars and cafes. There were also some really cool trails up into the hills, and people were hanging out with picnic blankets throughout. It’s definitely a weird spot, and even if you aren’t into smoking, it’s cool to stop in and see.
At this point, we were SUPER hungry, and we knew we’d be meeting up with some of Kelsey’s friends soon for drinks when they got off of work. We headed over to the Torvehallerne, which is a set of two absolutely beautiful food market buildings full of stands for fresh produce, meat and fish, as well as prepared foods to eat in or take to go. My favorite was Hallernes Smorrebrod, which had a huge selection of delicious open-faced sandwiches. We opted for the meatball and the smoked salmon. If I lived in CPH you can guarantee I’d be at this spot at LEAST once a week for lunch. You should totally click on the link above to see photos of everything else you can order there – you’ll book a flight immediately.
Afterwards we headed over to a super cool dive bar called Byens Kro, which it seemed everyone at Kelsey’s office called “The Smoking Bar” since it’s one of the few bars in the area where you can smoke cigarettes inside. They had an awesome selection of craft beer, including my favorite, Tripel Karmeliet, which was not only delicious, but deceptively strong.
While at the bar, our friend André taught us how to play Snyd, or Liar’s Dice in English, which turned out to be a super fun bar game. For those of you in tech, there is even a Liar’s Dice/Snyd game he created that you can attach to Slack if you want to be less productive at work 🙂
So this next stop is probably going to make most people from the US cringe. Our final stop for the evening, was our reservation at TGI Friday’s in Copenhagen. Interestingly, due to more stringent rules about the food you can serve in restaurants, Friday’s was pretty delicious. The steak was actually on par with some of the best steakhouses in San Francisco, and the service was more of what you’d expect in a higher end restaurant. The prices also reflected that, being a bit higher than the US. While I wouldn’t tell you you HAVE to put this on your list, it was a nice welcome break from eating only local food throughout Eastern Europe for the previous two weeks.
The next morning we woke up a bit late after all the beer and cocktails. We decided to hop over to the mall at the Hyllie Station in Malmo for lunch. The mall is MASSIVE, and it has a huge foodcourt with a ton of great food stalls. We opted for sushi, which neither of us had consumed in weeks. It was actually really delicious. Afterwards we both decided to relax by getting blowouts at one of the salons in the mall in preparation for our evening out on the town.
That night we had reservations at Relae in Copenhagen, which was at the time rated the 39th best restaurant in the world, but has since fallen off the 2018 list.
Prior to dinner, we stopped at a beer bar called Mikkeller, which surprisingly, also has a location in downtown San Francisco. After grabbing one drink, we headed over to our dinner reservations.
Overall Relae was good, but definitely not on par with some of the other Top 50 restaurants I’ve been to like Gaggan and Steirereck. The food was simple, and very vegetable based with only a few meat/seafood items. I was pleasantly full when we left, but definitely grabbed another round of McDonald’s chili cheese tots once we got back to the apartment that night. It was significantly cheaper than most of the Top 50, so that was nice. Next time I’m in CPH, I’m definitely planning on going to Geranium instead, which just landed the 19th spot on the coveted list.
Afterwards we went and met a bunch of Kelsey’s coworkers at Skaal, a beer bar named after how they say “Cheers” in Danish (which I refuse to say since it sounds too much like Vikings football team cheer). They had a ton of great craft beers on tap and also have food, so it’s a great place to stop for a late dinner if you’re hungry.
After drinks, we headed back to Malmo, and slept in pretty late. The next morning we were planning to go explore some of Malmo, but instead bought some more McDonald’s chili cheese tots and binge watched 3% on Netflix. Sometimes you just need a day off from exploring!
Later that day I headed off to the airport for my last stop on my 30 by 30 trip – Iceland!
Have any suggestions for my next trip to Copenhagen/Malmo, or questions about your upcoming trip? Let me know in the comments!
