Copenhagen – A new year of travels

We arrive early on Saturday after a stressed night on the bus. A baby kept everyone awake and the change between bus to ferry and bus again didn’t help either. Three hours of sleep have to get us through the first day.

It’s sunny and cold on this Saturday morning in Copenhagen and the city seems to be still asleep except a few of morning sports people.

We walk around town, see all the colorful houses and even the little mermaid without barely any other people. I guess we’ve done everything „important“ in one morning until the coffee shops and breakfast places open. We stop at Grød for the very tasty porridge.

Being pretty hungry by then I order the big „All Toppings Porridge“. It is one of the few times I indulge myself in something sweet until I am so stuffed I can’t move. Caramel, apple compote, coco chips, almonds, chocolate, raspberries – the porridge reveals more and more after digging deeper. I think no one has seen me say „I can’t eat more“ very often. It was great.

My Fernweh (literally far-away sickness or travel bug) never left me during the last months and the spontaneous weekend with Bridget in Copenhagen is hopefully the start of another travel intensive year. Next week we will be off to do the 9 days Kerry Way Hike in Ireland.

„What else do we have on the list?“ Bridget interrupts my thoughts. I unfold the three small pages with handwritten notes on it. Her co-worker from Copenhagen wrote together a couple of „important stops“ for us. Mostly good places to get food and drinks.

„I guess it’s pastries next?“

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We explore the city while walking from coffee to cake and smørebrød. We experience a typical hostel day and night with wrong beds being taken, overbooking, bad free coffee – but free! – and climbing up and down the bunk beds. We talk with locals about being tricked to live in Berlin on a summer day and then having to survive the dark winter. (The one topic that unites everyone who lived or lives in Berlin.)

We ride from bar to bar through the darkness on electric scooters and we are happy about the bicycle paths everywhere. And we play frisbee in one of the many parks on a beautiful sunny Sunday. The frisbee is our spontaneous shopping decision and I feel this is the beginning of a frisbee tradition.

We grab another great craft beer before we leave and I accidentally take the very rare and therefore very expensive beer from „Tired Hands“ for almost 20€ a pint. It’s worth it I tell myself.

Don’t be too hard to yourself. And enjoy the ride.

Next stop: Ireland.

Our Copenhagen tour:

Being touristy:

• The Little mermaid only on an early morning – you’ll get a nice walk with it.
• The Round Tower – fun to walk up and quite cheap for what you get.
• Christiana, the free city – another great sunshine walk to explore along the water.
• Woodah Hostel – for a small, friendly and sustainable hostel close to great places.
• Walk, ride a bike or a scooter and explore the city in all its facets.

Being delicious:

• Grød for porridge.
• CUB coffee bar for good coffee. (But there are so many of these all around town.)
• Sonny for a smørebrød and homemade lemonade.
• DØP for an organic (and veggie) Danish hotdog.
• Bertels for an amazing variety of cheesecakes.
• Ølsnedkeren for a nice evening with good and not too expensive craft beer.
• Warpigs Brewpub (by Mikkeller) for a dynamic crowd of beer and meat lovers (the side dishes w/o meat are also pretty tasty).
• The original Mikkeller as a complete contrast.

I guess we only explored about 0.5% of Copenhagen‘s great scene of food and drinks.