Note – photo gallery at the bottom of this post.
Our time in Copenhagen coincided with the celebration of our wedding anniversary. I’ve already talked a little bit about the amazing anniversary meal we had at Amass, but I also wanted to touch upon a few other reasons why it was the perfect place to spend our anniversary week.
Firstly, we paid a bit more than we normally would for our accommodation. This meant that we had a nicer Airbnb apartment in a very cool neighbourhood where we could properly relax, chill out, and enjoy some downtime at night. This apartment included a good quality bed with a memory foam mattress topper, a lounge room with a projector TV, and a fully-stocked kitchen with an oven where we could cook a roast – a far cry from a small studio apartment where you have a single hotplate and a single frypan to cook your meals.
Secondly, we were blessed with decent weather while we were there – cold, but sunny. There were some days that were a bit rainy and windy, but there’s enough indoor attractions in Copenhagen to make up for it. Most importantly, the first snow of the season happened on the day of our anniversary – we watched kids having snow fights in the street below our apartment as the world around us was transformed into a winter wonderland.
Thirdly, as I’ve just mentioned Copenhagen has some excellent indoor museums and galleries – most of which are free on at least one day of the week. This comes in very handy when you’re in one of the most expensive cities in Europe but still want to go out and do things!
So, what did we do while we were there? We did galleries and museums – the National Gallery and the National Museum, both of which were free entry on the days we went. We did a very comprehensive free walking tour of Copenhagen with an English guide named Roger, and a second walking tour around the island of Christianshavn with a foray into the ‘free living’ area of Christiania. We spent a day walking around our neighbourhood of Norrebro, ducking into little design shops along the way. We visited landmarks like the Opera House and the Little Mermaid statue, and watched the changing of the guard at Amalienborg Palace (where we selfied in front of ‘Our Mary’s’ house). We visited a number of Christmas markets around the city. We did a day trip to Malmo in Sweden.
We ate – of course! Our anniversary meal at Amass was a highlight, as was our meal at Baest after an afternoon movie. We had a traditional Danish smorrebrod lunch at Hviids Vinstue, and ate six hotdogs during our stay. We also had some Danish pastries (ha!) along the way from both small independent bakeries and larger bakery chains. We also splurged on buying some nice produce and cooked some nice meals at home – a good grilled steak, some roast vegetables, and more.
The beautiful thing about Copenhagen is that it’s a very liveable city. While everything is more expensive, they really make things easier for residents, if a little bit harder for tourists. As someone said to me, as a resident they pay only 360DKK a month for their travel pass – whereas tourists pay almost 200 DKK just for a three-day pass. At least the fact that everyone speaks flawless English does make things easier for tourists to get around – there’s no expectation that you should know Danish, reputed to be one of the hardest languages to learn.
Copenhagen is a beautiful city, and I’d love to visit Denmark again. Next time, I’d like to see more of the country outside its capital, visiting some of the more regional areas. K in particular was disappointed that we’d missed out on visiting Legoland by just a few weeks (it closes in winter), so we’ll definitely have to go back for that!
