Our air itinerary was
outbound, September 12 (Tuesday):
BQ 598 dep LHR 0805 arr BRU 1000 BQ 884 dep BRU 1100 arr CPH 1235
BQ 885 dep CPH 1320 arr BRU 1500 BQ 605 dep BRU 1630 arr LHR 1640
We arrived at Copenhagen Airport (aka Kastrup) late due to late departure from BRU. We hadn't done much preparation for Copenhagen. We'd read a couple of guidebooks but really planned on "winging it" (see description of B&W museum below to understand why!). On arrival at Kastrup we flew through to the arrival hall looking for an ATM. There was one - but it was out of commission. Perhaps the Danish bank's way of ensuring we use their (monopolistic) bureau de change? We exchanged a grand total of USD 20 (even though we had plenty of British pounds) - just enough to get us into Copenhagen itself. We went outside to look for the Radisson SAS bus which the airport Tourist Information desk recommended as the *only* way to get Into town. We learned fairly quickly this was not the case.
The trip into town was DKr 35 (about USD 5) each. The bus was quite nice, "coach" style (in Brit-speak), rather than a city bus. It went non-stop to Hovedbanegarden (Copenhagen Central Rail Station), in about 25 minutes. We got off the bus and went straight across the street to the Wonderful Copenhagen tourist office. One of the readers of rec.travel.europe suggested getting the Copenhagen This Week guide. It certainly was the reference we used most often while touring the area. The nice woman in the tourist office suggested that unless we planned to do *alot* of museuming, the Copenhagen Card wasn't worth the price. She was certainly right!
From the tourist office we hit a (working) ATM (finally), and then walked across Radhuspladsen (City Hall Square) toward Stroget (the shopping street of Copenhagen). We went in search of food. The first couple of places we looked at were right in the first block of Stroget and thus very "touristy". We were looking for something a bit more authentic. We did end up finding a small cafe about two streets off of Stroget in a basement. The meal was quite good (although not as good as lunch the next day!).
From the restaurant we walked down towards our hotel in Nyhavn. We had booked a room at the Hotel Maritime, a hotel we found on the web. I had corresponded with them via email (to confirm that they had non-smoking rooms and that they accepted VISA). I had also asked about rates - and was quoted some 100 DKr above their listed rates on their webpage. One of the guidebooks I had read specifically mentioned this hotel as having rates "open to negotiation". Upon learning this, I wrote back to the hotel (via email) and asked about a cheaper rate, and they did come down to 625 Dkr/night. So if you're planning a trip and consider this hotel, take price negotiation into consideration!
It took us a good 20 minutes of walking through part of Kongens Nytorv to the hotel. We checked in and got the key to our room. It was, shall we put it, a bit on the small side. There were two single beds, placed in "L" shape, a small mid-room table, a tiny cupboard, window-side desk, and TV stand. We moved the mid-room table off to the side and pushed the two beds together. That gave the room quite a bit more space to maneuver in. There was an ensuite bathroom, which had obviously been recently renovated. The bathroom was really cool (and the shower pressure completely acceptable!). The room and the bathroom were both immaculate.
We dumped off our bags (we had travelled with two bags - both small backpacks - to avoid checking bags through Brussels), and plotted what to do next. As the time was past 4pm and most museums started to close at 4pm, we made the decision to scout the city for the next day, so we had a bit better idea of what we wanted to hit. We walked from the hotel back to Hovedbanegarden via Radhuspladsen. We bought a 10-clip ticket (2 zones per clip) and took the train to Osterport. From there, we stopped at a grocery store (and bought a 3 pack of Ribena drinkboxes and a couple of bags of snack food), and headed towards Den lille Havfrue (The little mermaid). From there, we walked back towards town. Our walk took us past Gefion Springvandet (Gefion Fountain), the Frihedsmuseet (The Museum of Danish Resistance during the second World War), and Amalienborg Slot (Amalienborg Palace, part of which is still occupied by Royalty). Amalienborg was so different from the English Royal palaces I've been near. For one thing, you can actually talk to the guards (although I didn't try). You can even touch the palace wings (again, I didn't try!).
After Amalienborg we headed towards Store Kongensgade, as we had seen mention of one particular Smorrebrod place on that street which sounded especially tasty. The place was lunch only, but we marked it as "where to go" for lunch the following day. We walked back through Kongens Nytorv (again), and back to the hotel.
The hotel had a decent selection of television channels, something like 20-25 in all, and 4 or 5 were actually in English! A good smattering of the others also showed English-language shows with Danish subtitles (including "Full House" - ugh!).
The next morning, we got an early start, planning to be up & out by 9am. We had breakfast in the hotel (the hotel rate included breakfast) and it was a buffet. Cold cereals (including Frosted Flakes!), "Danish" pastries, fruit, fresh bread, cold meats, coffee, orange juice, hard boiled eggs. It was quite complete.
Our first destination was Holmens Kirke (Holmens Church). The guidebook mentioned it as opening at 9am (a rarity for Copenhagen museums, as we were to find!). We walked past only to find a service going on, so we didn't go in. We dawdled a bit, and then headed to Nationalmuseet (National Museum). This was a Wednesday, and thus the museum was free. There were a couple of special exhibits (including one on toys) that we were eager to look at. When we arrived, however, the museum was overrun by school parties. We decided to do something else and then come back a bit later when hopefully the museum would be a bit quieter!
While trying to decide what to do, we walked along Stroget. We happened on a "Bodum" store - a brand of kitchen and coffee gadgets that both of our mothers love. We went in, confirmed they did ship overseas, and proceeded to spend quite a bit of money, and then had them ship it to us back in the USA. From the (dangerous - in terms of spending money, not personal safety) Stroget we walked back to Radhuspladsen. We had picked up a brochure of one museum caught that our eye: Oresund Udstilling (a museum about the project of building a fixed link bridge-and-tunnel from Denmark [near Kastrup airport] to Sweden [near Malmo]). We love civil engineering, so made the decision that the museum would be a nice thing to see.
At Radhuspladsen we got a bus timetable, and found out that there was a city bus to Kastrup Airport (well, one leaving from Radhuspladsen - there was also another, which left from Kongens Nytorv), costing about 1/3 of the SAS bus (and only taking marginally longer). This bus went relatively close to Oresund Udstilling, so we went out to catch it. The same 10-clip ticket that we had bought the previous day for use to Osterport worked just fine on the bus. It was a pleasant 25 minute ride. The city busses in Copenhagen are *punctual*. The timetable said 10:12 and it meant it! Inside the bus, there was a scrolling sign listing the next stop as well as how long it would take to get to the next stop. Interspersed was the current time and time to final destination. If only Boston's busses were this efficient!
We got off the bus and had to walk about 15 minutes to the museum (partly exacerbated by the fact that the museum has a very LOOOONG driveway). We went in and bought tickets (DKr20 - about USD 3), and went into the museum. We were the *only* people there! The museum was quite cool. When we had arrived at Kastrup we saw they were doing lots of construction and didn't know why. Apparently, the Kastrup construction was all related to the Oresund project. A new motorway was being built from Copenhagen to Kastrup, to eventually go into the tunnel. A new train station was also being built at Kastrup. Eventually, one will be able to take a train from Radhuspladsen straight into Malmo in Sweden. Total time: about 25 minutes (much faster than the currently 45 minute ferry crossing - and the ferries leave from a different part of Copenhagen). We spent about 90 minutes in the museum, hit the gift shop, and left.
We walked to a different bus stop for our return trip as we wanted to go to the Frihedsmuseet (Museum of the Danish Resistance), and the bus we took down only went back to Radhuspladsen. We had a nice 30 minute ride back - a slightly different route than we took on the way down (always nice to have variety). The Frihedsmuseet was very interesting. There were parts of it I just couldn't look at - too gruesome. The museum was also free. I do recommend it to anybody visiting Copenhagen who wants to get an idea of what living in German-occupied Europe was like.
We spent about an hour in the Frihedsmuseet, and then headed out towards lunch (pausing to buy some postcards at the gift shop of the museum). We had picked out Wednesday's lunch place on Tuesday - Ida Davidsen (Store Kongensgade 70). It was only open for lunch, but "for lunch" means until 5pm. Danes seem to eat late lunches (~1pm) and then late dinners (usually after 7pm), and the local restaurants reflected that. Ida Davidsen specializes in the Danish national dish of "Smorrebrod" - an open faced sandwich. We walked in just after 3pm, and the restaurant was still surprisingly busy (only two open tables).
We were invited to take either of them (we took the one *not* next to the smokers - another important note, only a few places in Copenhagen that we went to had segregated seating for smokers & non-smokers). Then we were invited up to the counter and Ida (the owner) herself explained what each smorrebrod was. There were many varieties. My husband chose one which was smoked salmon, shrimp, and a dill sauce. I chose roast beef (cooked, although tartare was available) with new potatoes and tomatoes. The smorrebrods were both fabulous. I raved about the meal for weeks (I still am!), although I suppose being really hungry at the time has something to do with it! We topped off the meal with dessert (not usually something we partake of in restaurants) - fruit tart: a base of pastry, marzipan, and chocolate, topped with strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and kiwi fruit. We had whipped cream on top. If I never have another fruit tart again that will be just fine, because this one was absolutely divine. My husband concurred (he's a marzipan nut). We also had a coke each. Our total dinner bill came out to DKr 300 - or about USD 43. Once I did the currency conversion my husband flinched. I didn't. The meal was definitely worth it!
After lunch we headed back through Kongens Nytorv (again!) to the hotel to pick up the camera (which we had inadvertendly left behind that morning). From the hotel we went back to Nationalmuseet (National Museum). We got there about 4:15. One of the guidebooks we had (*not* Copenhagen This Week) said that the museum was open late on Wednesday. Come 5:00pm we found this was not the case - the lights were all shut off. Oh well, we did get to see some interesting things (notably the toy exhibit mentioned before).
We wandered down Stroget for a bit (we tended to do that when we didn't have anything else to do) and tried to decide what to do next. We thought about taking the ferry to Malmo. One of the ferry companies was offering a price of DKr 19.95 per person one way (about USD 3). Since the ferry company was right down the street from the hotel, we headed back to the hotel for a little while, and then down to the docks. Two ferry companies were almost abutting each other. Only one of them (the closer one to our hotel) was offering the special price. Typically, it was "with restrictions", but even the non-restricted price was DKr 29.95 per person one way (4.25 USD). While we tried to decide what to do we wandered into a small market across the street from the ferry port. We ended up walking out with quite a few chocolate bars (at DKr 7 - we've had these chocolate bars in the US and they're much more expensive [since they're imports :-]).
We decided for various reasons to not go on the ferry, and went over to Hovedbanegarden to buy another 10-clip ticket. We were planning to go to Experimentarium the next day, which could only reasonably be gotten to by bus (well, also by rail, but the rail station was quite a ways from our hotel and the bus was very nearby). We wandered around the Radhuspladsen area for a while, window shopping (and did a bit more grocery shopping - more Ribena drinkboxes). We found that there really was not much to do in Copenhagen after dark - unless one wanted dinner (we'd had lunch at 3:30pm so dinner wasn't high on our priority list), to go dancing (we both have two left feet), to go drinking (we don't), etc. So we went back to the hotel.
At the hotel we found some of Copenhagen's free bikes at a rack just near the hotel. [For those who have never been to Copenhagen: there are bike racks all over the city which have bikes for "rent". You insert a DKr 20 coin (about USD 3) into the bike lock, take the bike, and then take it back to *any* bike rack in the city. You then get your DKr 20 back. So it's a free rental! It's a great system - and obviously the locals think so, as there were rarely bikes available. We "rented" a couple of bikes and took a short ride around. Then we went back to the hotel.
Up early again Thursday morning, as we were off to the Experimentarium (think "Science Museum" and that's pretty close). We had breakfast in the hotel again (a daily theme, as it was included in the room price). We were running quite early, and thus caught a bus before we intended to. As it turned out - it was the wrong bus. The bus did a "short turn" before the stop we wanted, but luckily it was at a rail station. We just took the train one more stop and walked to the museum from there.
We arrived at the museum just before 9am (it was one of the few museums to open so early). There were several schoolgroups waiting to go in. If we had wanted to, we could have gotten in with them, but we paid our Dkr 69 (USD 10) per person entrance fee. The Experimentarium was quite cool, and we managed to spend more than two hours there (truly a feat for us, as we visit many science museums and have thus seen many of the "common" exhibits). From the Experimentarium we went to catch the bus back towards town.
Our destination was the B&W Museum (Burmeister & Wain - a maker of diesel engines and ships). The museum was very quiet and there were only two other people there apart from us and the guide. There were many small-scale models of B&W diesel engines, many of which had a "push button" so you could see how they actually work. My husband and I were more interested in the engines than the ships but the ships were still very impressive.
We spent about 45 minutes in the B&W and then went outside to contemplate what to do next. We sat down on a convenient rock, and opened our Copenhagen This Week. A girl (young lady? about 21 or so) walked up to us, carrying a HUGE "Fodor's Europe 1996". She asked if we spoke English. We told her that we did. She wanted help in finding a church. Since the B&W was right next to a church, we asked her why that church wasn't what she wanted. She said she was Catholic and wanted a Catholic church. We helped her find one (which wasn't very nearby at all). She said that she'd gone into a few churches but that they were all Protestant. We asked her if she knew that Denmark's population was more than 90% Protestant. She said she didn't (didn't that big Fodor's book include that important fact?). We walked along with her for a little while (to the end of the block). She told us that she had been in the country two days and that she'd seen Madame Tussauds and the Carlsberg Brewery ("you get free beer at the end!"). Is that what visiting a foreign country is all about?
We parted ways and she went off in search of her cousin (and presumably a church). We went towards Orlogsmuseet (Royal Naval Museum). We got there, stood outside, looked at the pictures outside, read more about the museum in the guidebooks, and decided not to go in. Oh well - at least we'd had a nice walk through Christianshavn (that area of Copenhagen). We decided to walk back towards Radhuspladsen in search of lunch. It was a long & windy walk through a park with a lake and eventually over a big bridge.
We ended up at Hovedbanegarden (Railway Station) and decided to eat at the Bistro there. Usually, one would think that a railway station would not present many options for food. This rail station, however, is practically a city unto itself. It has a grocery store, innumerable restaurants (including a Subway sandwiches restaurant), news stands, flower shops, plus the obligatory ticket counters and the like. The Bistro at the Railway station had been mentioned in a couple of guidebooks as having a buffet which was incredibly good value. Well, they certainly didn't make any money off of my husband. He ate smoked salmon like there was no tomorrow. I must confess, however, that I wasn't exactly a dainty eater myself.
Lunch over, we walked down Stroget towards Rundetarn (literally "Round Tower"). It is an observatory built by King Christian IV (who seems to have built half of the city from the number of places his name is on!). Unlike many towers which have either steps or an elevator to the top, Rundetarn has a spiral path. Entrance fee was 15 DKr (about USD 2) We soon walked off that big lunch - it was quite a climb. The view from the top was breathtaking and we took photographs. We stayed up there perhaps 20 minutes.
We walked down Stroget a bit more, figuring it would be our last chance (and it was, *almost*). We wandered for quite a while, and then decided to try the ferry one more time. Well, by the time we got there, we had missed the 5:00p. Copenhagen This Week had mentioned the Nightwatchman Rounds as something to do in the evenings, and we wanted to try that. It started at 9pm so we knew we'd have to be back from Sweden before then. The ferry trip is 45 minutes each way, so we were hoping to get on the 6pm and back on the 7pm (15 minutes in Sweden? :-). Problem with that: there *was* no return 7pm ferry. Obviously, fate did not want us to go to Malmo, Sweden!
We wandered along the waterfront for a while (stopped at the same grocery store to pick up more chocolate plus some Danish biscuits), and then went back to the hotel to pack. We figured after we got back from the Nightwatchman Rounds we'd go straight to bed and we wanted to be packed for the next morning.
Nightwatchman Rounds were due to start at 9pm. We didn't know exactly where the start was (Grabrodre Torv [Greyfriars' Square], we had seen it on a map, but we'd not been there), so we left at about 8:30pm to ensure we would get there on time. Typically, we got there at about 8:40pm. :-) We window shopped for a while, and got back to Grabrodre Torv just before 9pm.
The Nightwatchman Rounds was one of the highlights of our trip to Copenhagen. We didn't walk very far (my husband and I are fit and can walk for miles at a time), but we learned many interesting things. The "Nightwatchman" gave the speech in Danish and English. He was quite a character - carried a flask of liquor with him & everything! The tour was free (although tips were accepted at the end, and we did oblige), and took about 90 minutes ("Copenhagen This Week" lists it as an hour - probably true for the Danish-only version).
Back to the hotel, and early to bed. Our plane the next day was 12:30, and we wanted to be at Kastrup in plenty of time. We got up, had breakfast, and checked out. The last thing we wanted to see was Jens Olsen's Astronomical Clock (at Radhus - City Hall). The clock room opened at 10am, so we walked along Stroget for a few minutes (picked up a couple of small souvenirs. Some people buy bumper stickers for their cars. We buy them for our suitcase. Many bags look alike. Not ours. :-) The clock was worth the trip and the wait. It was a fascinating piece of engineering. Entrance fee was DKr 10 (about USD 1.50). The clock was in a room all by itself.
After we finished with the clock we went out to Radhuspladsen to catch the bus for Kastrup Airport. We caught the bus at about 10:20 and got to Kastrup before 11:00am. We checked in (early!) and cleared passport control and security, mostly so we'd have a chance to go shopping (duty free). There certainly was alot of selection. Among the things we purchased was: skin cream for my Grandmother, Brandy for my Aunt & Uncle, and chocolates for our office staff. After shopping, we looked at the restaurant choices. We both were eager to have another Smorrebrod, but the only Danish restaurant was heavy on the herring (and neither of us are keen on herring), so we chose Pizza Hut instead. After that we went down to the boarding area to await boarding call.
All in all our trip to Copenhagen was fascinating. I certainly would go back there, and next time I'd hope to have a little bit more time to spend. Four days was just barely enough (although we could have used those four days better if more museums & things had been open in the evenings!).
Helen Rose
<hrose-web@ckdhr.com>
Last modified: Sun Nov 22 09:54:59 EST 1998