Thursday Travels - Copenhagen

I know it's not Thursday, but if I didn't write and post this today it wouldn't get done. So deal with it.

The next trip on our summer schedule was to Copenhagen. Copenhagen had been on our list for a while and we never fit it in, so we decided to finally just book tickets and go. However, it ended up being the first of five consecutive weekends we were out of town in August, so in retrospect, we could have waited.

I was a bit worried that Copenhagen would have a similar feel to Helsinki, since we went to Copenhagen three weeks after going to Helsinki. But I was wrong, and Copenhagen felt much more lively and spirited than Helsinki, which was nice. I actually liked Copenhagen a lot. The weather wasn't great while we there, we had some rain and colder temps, but that didn't matter too much. After all, we live in London.

We did as we always do on our trips, we walked around the city. We skipped Tivoli, and instead walked in the main pedestrianized shopping area, in the pretty park on the way to a smorrebrod lunch, we walked in the Nyhavn area, famous for its colored buildings along side a canal, and in the area below our hotel which had a slight sex shop feel to it (probably because we walked by about five sex shops).

Oh, we also ate cinnamon rolls again. And once again we had a few of those. We especially liked the bakery chain Lagkagehuset. There happened to be one a few blocks from our hotel, which was quite handy! Every time we saw one (they have multiple locations in the city) we would say "oh look, it's Lagekagehugeset..." severely butchering the name in our excitement.

We did not take a harbor boat ride, or visit the palace or see the statue of the little mermaid. (I almost typed statue as statuTe. Goes to show you what three years of law school does to you - prevents you from ever typing statue correctly) I think we were ok with missing the mermaid. But we did enjoy seeing all the bikes that weren't locked, and all the kids being shuttled to and fro in their bike boxes.

We went to one of the main stores in town, Illums Bolighus, which was a great store with a lot of really nice Scandinavian design. I walked around and saw about 15 things I wanted. However, the prices made me put them down and sloooowly walk away. Holy moly things were expensive. That goes for food also. We did the smorrebrod, as I mentioned, and yes, it was good, really good in fact, but lunch was sooooo expensive. Dave almost choked when he saw the bill. He wasn't actually eating when the bill came so he almost choked on air, it was that bad. Maybe not $8 Starbucks hot chocolate a la Geneva bad, but bad. As a whole the shopping in the city seemed interesting, but a bit out of my reach. Damn Danish krone exchange rate.

This thermometer is right by the entrance to the shopping area, and across from Tivoli. I love how the temperature only goes up to 30. I guess you can't set your expectations too high that way. (Yet notice it also goes to 20 below. Ugh) I also love how the Carlsberg ad says "probably the best beer in town." I read that as "I guess it is. Maybe. It could be. Who knows." Not as the more declarative statement it's probably intended to be.

We stayed at the Bertrams Hotel Guldsmeden, which was nice (small room) but a bit far from the main sites. A bus stopped right outside the hotel, so it was easy to get around, but it wasn't the sort of hotel you could quickly run back to if you needed a sweater. And our cab driver had no clue where it was so there was that. But not many hotels in Copenhagen get really good reviews, so I went with the cheapest and best option and it was fine, in fact overall perfectly enjoyable. The managers were nice too - one said "goody" a lot.

Our trip to Copenhagen was short because we had a slightly earlier flight home on Sunday. I think we were there the perfect amount of time though. We got to walk around and see a lot of the city, yet we weren't there long enough to get really annoyed by the prices. We got to see some Danish design, and eat some Danish pastries and enjoy the Danish spirit that was so much more evident than anything we saw in Finland. So I was glad we got to cross it off our list. It was worth it.

Now on to the important thing - would Riley like Copenhagen? Well, we have the issue of the cold bothering her precious paws. But I do think she'd like it. She'd like the people watching, and the bakeries, and obviously they have that whole "quality of life" thing going on there. She's a dog that can appreciate the finer things in life, so I think she'd be happy in Copenhagen.