Jenn and I have been a lot of places, but Scandinavia was uncharted territory for us before this weekend. There is so much we would have liked to see, but we didn't have too much time. You've got to start somewhere, and where we started, was Copenhagen.
We'd heard great things about the city and had really high expectations. After arriving on an early morning flight, buying our Copenhagen tourist cards, and dropping our bags off at the Kong Frederick Hotel, we hit the ground running. Our first impression was that the city was much dirtier than we expected. It's not that it was dirty per se, but we expected it to be spotless (like Singapore), and it's far from it. We walked up Stroget, which is the main shopping street, and onto the Rosenborg Castle, one of several residences for the royal family. The crown jewels are stored there and were both absurd and impressive at the same time.
We ate lunch at the Royal Cafe, known for their famous smushies, which is a modern take on smorrebrod, the open faced sandwiches that Denmark is known for. They were a little fancy, but pretty good. We shared three: meatloaf, smoked salmon, and scallop hash. Everything, including food, is incredibly expensive in Copenhagen. It's painful. This lunch of three smushies and water set us back roughly 30 bucks.
In order to maximize our time and get the most out of our recently purchased Copenhagen cards, we then walked over to and through the Jewish Museum. It was small, but better than most Jewish museums we'd been to in that the focus was actually on Jewish history in Denmark, as opposed to simply showing Jewish symbols like torahs, menorahs, etc.
The sky was still bright blue and the sun shining brightly, so we walked outside some more. We walked to the water and checked out the beautiful Royal Library building. One side is the old traditional library building, but the other is a modern all glass creation known as the Black Diamond. We hung out and enjoyed the nice weather for a while and then went back to the hotel to nap for a couple of hours before our late dinner reservation.
Danish cuisine is very hot right now. It's crown jewel is Noma, which was just named the top restaurant in the world by S. Pellegrino's Top 50 Restaurants in the World, whatever that means. We were not able to get a reservation there, but there are plenty of excellent options. A lot of the menus, however, didn't look that appetizing to us. Sometimes restaurants can just be too out there with their menus. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who enjoy shelling out two to three hundred a person for food that looks like it belongs in a modern art museum, but not us. Even the Top Chef judges constantly are reminding the contestants to keep it simple. If Padma says so, then I'll listen.
Dinner was at the excellent Fiskebar, at the entrance of the old meatpacking district. They still have the old meat hooks (gross) as coat hangers to prove it. Sitting in this place, one gets the sense that they think they are too cool for their own good, but it's a neat place. We shared scallops over puff pastry for the appetizer and pan fried witch, which is kind of like flounder, for the entree. Both were outstanding. This was the type of meal that makes one appreciate food. It was simple food, prepared well.
There was more great weather on our second day and we enjoyed the city as a local does and did so by bike. We took the tour with Bike with Mike, and it was great. We rode through the heart of the city and saw most of the highlights: Copenhagen Cathedral, Christianhavn area, Nyhavn neighborhood, the opera house, the Royal Palace, and of course the Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid is a small statue that was inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen tale. When watching tourists fawn over it and desperately try to touch it, it comes across a lot like an idol being worshiped. It's a little strange. It was impossible to get a picture of it without capturing onlookers and "touchers" in the background. As I realize every time we do such things, I enjoy biking much more in theory than I do in reality, but it was a very enjoyable three and a half hours. One thing that struck us was how relaxed things are there as opposed to the United States. Mike didn't have biking helmets for us and very rarely looked back to make sure his participants were with the group and/or alive. It all worked out in the end though, so I guess he knows what he's doing.
We had a late lunch al fresco at Cafe Victor, which was awesome. Jenn had the lobster bisque and I had the brunch plate, which consisted of scrambled eggs, delicious smoked salmon, chopped liver, and some other things. Everything was excellent.
We only had about an hour before the Christiansborg Palace was to close, so we rushed through it. It was actually very nice. The highlights were the Great Hall, which is adorned with modern tapestries created and given to the Queen in honor of her 50th birthday (though they weren't actually given to her until her 60th because they took 10 years to make), and the ruins below the palace of previous castles that stood at the same site. We probably could have used more time there.
In the evening (and I use that word lightly in that it doesn't get dark there until around 10pm), we visited the famous Tivoli Gardens. These gardens, legend has it, are what inspired Walt Disney to create Disney World. It's a weird place. As for the actual grounds, it's very pretty. The flowers, mostly tulips, were in full bloom, and were beautiful. Otherwise, it's a nice amusement park with roller coasters, carnival games, etc. What is strange is that as opposed to Six Flags and the Disney parks, where there is vending stand after vending stand hawking hot dogs, burgers, and other greasy fare, Tivoli has many high end restaurants, a couple of which have Michelin stars. Since we were there at night, it was mostly adults there, probably there for dinner, and the way too overhyped fountain and laser show. Since it was Sunday, several restaurants were closed and the ones that were open didn't interest us much. We opted for organic hot dogs from the vending stand... in the Asian section of the park, since, of course, organic hot dogs from... Asia, are so good. We selected this over the hamburgers offered from the other stand in the Asian section.
It was finally dark and we took and evening stroll over to see the opera house lit up at night, which nice. We passed the Royal Danish Playhouse, which is another beautiful glass building along with every other glass building in the city. There were tons of people filing in for a post party after attending what we found out was some theater awards ceremony. They were in formal wear, and while most were walking, it was funny to see many of them riding their bikes, as the Danes like to do. We thought it would be fun to crash it as it didn't seem too hard to sneak in, but we didn't have anything any on closely resembling formal wear, and I'm not capable of such a thing.
On our third day in Copenhagen, we still had wonderful weather. It was Jenn's birthday. We walked outside a lot. We toured through the Danish Design Center in the morning, which was pretty much an advertisement for how great the Danish are at designing things. I thought perhaps they were taking credit for a few things that weren't necessarily their original ideas, but who was I to argue? Lunch was at Ida Davidsen, which seemed to be the oldest and most famous smorrebrod restaurant. It was overpriced, but the sandwiches were good. We shared three: smoked salmon, a kind of baked potato one, and roast beef with fried onions on top.
After walking through a few of the local department stores and in and out of the Royal Copenhagen china store, we went over to the Norrebro neighborhood to check it out. We sat in the front row of the metro and the front of the train is a clear window (like the monorail), so it felt like video game. It was awesome. There wasn't much to see once we arrive, but there was one street with some cute shops and restaurants. I got some ice cream, so was happy. On the way back, we walked through the Assistens Cemetary, which doubles as a park where people rest, relax, sunbathe, and whatever else people do in parks. It was a little strange to see people sunbathing right next to gravestones. We saw Hans Christian Andersen's grave. There are some other famous Danes buried there, including Soren Kierkegaard, and Cristen Jacobsen, the founder of the Carlsberg brewery, but we didn't know that until later.
After a beer sampler at the Brewpub next to our hotel, we were about out of time. We grabbed our bags from the hotel and had really nice birthday dinner for Jenn at the Nimb Hotel Bar 'n' Grill. We were the only ones in the restaurant for a 5:15 reservation, but we had to eat early so we could catch a train to the airport for our flight out at 8. Dinner was great, and the chocolate fondant with vanilla ice cream was a great way to top it off.
It was a perfect end to Jenn's birthday and to our trip. The flight back was uneventful. It was nice to get back to Bratislava. It'll be nice to spend a few weeks back at home without any work travel for a while.
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