Copenhagen is a food-lover’s paradise. This year, the city was awarded 15 Michelin
stars across 13 restaurants. Being the
foodies we are, David and I chose to visit Denmark for the May bank holiday
weekend.
Alyson is not the biggest fan of roller-coasters, but she did great at Tivoli! She rode her first real rollercoaster, the Rutschebanen. Built in 1914, the Rutschebanen is the third oldest roller coaster in the world and boy, did we feel its age creaking along the ancient wooden track.
We invited our friends, Paul and Alyson Tart, to come with
us. Since we moved to London, we’ve
mostly travelled on our own. This year,
David and I are only taking one vacation alone together – our anniversary trip
to the Maldives. 2013 is the year of
travelling with friends and family! And
that’s always more fun, right?
We met the Tarts at one of the UT alumni game-watching
parties last year, but I had also known Paul back in college when he was in the
Petroleum Engineering school with my roommate, Anna, and our friends, Terri and
Meike. We have a ton in common with the
Tarts, including our love of travel!
We took a flight out on Friday after work and arrived at our
hotel, the Admiral, later that night. Since
we were only going to be in Denmark for 2½ days, we decided to do a Segway tour
first thing Saturday morning to get our bearings and see as much of the city as
we could that first day.
Paul and Alyson had done Segway tours before, but David and
I were newbies. After having breakfast
in the New Harbor near our hotel, we had a quick orientation while the Tarts
schooled us in the art of the Segway. We
picked it up pretty fast and now David is in love with the Segway. He wants one to zoom around London! It is super easy and a fun way of exploring a
new city. People were taking pictures
and videos of us; we were definitely the center of attention (probably because
we were 3 feet taller than everyone around us).
The New Harbor
We saw sites like the Black Diamond,
the modern extension of
the Royal Library,
the Round Tower,
the Marble Church and Amalienborg Castle, the home of the
royal family,
and of course, the jewel of Copenhagen, The Little Mermaid.
Hans Christian Andersen is probably Copenhagen’s most famous
figure. While we were in Denmark, we
found out that the stories we loved as children are not really the happy-ending
fairy tales we learned from Disney. I
was horrified to hear that in the actual book, when the Little Mermaid loses
her tail, her new legs make it feel like she’s walking on glass and her feet
bleed. Then she’s jilted by the prince,
who marries another woman. The mermaid
eventually dies and can’t get to heaven because she isn’t human and doesn’t have
a soul! Jeez Louise, try explaining that
to a child!
After our Segway tour, we grabbed lunch at the Royal Café,
famous for its smushie sandwiches. We
each had a sampler of three sandwiches.
I choose the fake duck (aka pork) with Waldorf salad, the roast beef
with smoked potatoes, and the shrimp with chive mayonnaise. Ohmygosh, I could’ve eaten 10 of those roast
beef smushies! They were like sushi
rolls of creamy potatoes wrapped in roast beef.
We then headed over to The Church of our Savior to climb the
spire. There was only one way up/one way
down on the spire so it got crowded fast!
Between the tight quarters, the slanting roof, and the strong winds,
that was enough for David and Alyson.
Paul and I figured since we had waited in line that long to get to the
top, we might as well stick it out. But
in all honesty, the view wasn’t that different from the top as it was from the
first curvature.
From the top of the Church of our Savior, we could see Freetown
Christiania. It’s against the “rules” to
take pictures inside Christiania so we snapped a few photos from above instead
– muahaha! After we left the church, we
headed over there to check it out. Freetown
Christiana is trying to be its own separate state within Copenhagen, but in
reality it’s a giant commune where its residents live as squatters and smoke
pot all day. It was such a weird
place. As we were walking through the
“town,” David said he felt like he had found the Lost Boy’s colony. They didn’t seem like the most productive members
of society.
The residents of Christiana happened to be
having a parade that same day...
Then we stopped at the bakery Lagkagehuset for some sweets
and walked along the canals to the Opera House before boarding a water bus back
to the hotel.
At this point, I have to mention how ridiculously expensive
Copenhagen is. We had heard about the
outrageous prices in the Nordics, so we were prepared, and now I want to
prepare all of you in case you ever head that direction. A one-way water bus ticket across the canal
(literally, a short length of water I could’ve easily swum across had it not
been the freezing Baltic Sea) cost $20 for the four of us. Our lunch of smushies, three tiny sandwiches,
cost $30/person. And in all of the
restaurants we went to, they charged us for tap water! The flight from London to Copenhagen was
really inexpensive, but that’s where our savings stopped. We tried not to do any currency conversions
while we were there, and decided to just worry about our bank accounts after we
got back home.
Another tip - dining out in Copenhagen requires
reservations. Whether you’re grabbing
lunch at a more casual eatery, or having dinner at one of the Michelin-starred
restaurants, call in advance! David had
made reservations for us on Saturday night at Grønbech & Churchill. We had tried calling
Noma, the #1 restaurant in the world for the past 3 years, but they are booked
months in advance. Even with their
recent food poisoning debacle and drop to the #2 spot this year, they are booked solid!
Alyson and I are very similar in our eating habits. We don’t eat meat off the bone (reminds us
too much that we’re eating an animal) and we don’t like fish. But dining in Copenhagen, it is impossible to
avoid fish. The first course of our four
course meal at G&C was fish – brill.
But the way it was cooked and seasoned, it was delicious and tender. Beside the main dishes, my favorite part of
the meal was the palate cleanser between each course. These consisted of different types of breads,
and the bread in Denmark is like cake.
We started off with anise and liquorice soaked bread, then a cornmeal
crusted bread, and finally a burnt breadstick with our potato morel cheese soup. And of course, there was the dessert. Heavenly chocolate ice cream with hazelnut and
Jerusalem artichoke.
On our second day in Copenhagen, Paul and Alyson found an
all-you-can eat breakfast buffet at a French café, Den Franske, on the Copenhagen
Lakes. After filling up on crepes and
fruit, we walked to Rosenborg Palace to see the crown jewels.
The palace surrounded by its moat
Inside the throne room
From there, we took the subway to Tivoli.
The Nimb hotel and its matching peacock inside Tivoli
Tivoli Gardens is an amusement park founded in 1843, and was
the inspiration for Walt Disney’s future parks when he visited in 1950. We could definitely see elements of
Disneyworld all around us. From the
themed areas like India and China, to the water/light show at the end of the
night, it was like a smaller version of Epcot.
When we got to the park, it was lunchtime. Like the rest of Copenhagen, Tivoli is home
to award-winning restaurants. You
wouldn’t expect that inside an amusement park.
I had read about Andersen Bakery inside the Nimb hotel before our
trip. In the 1950’s, a Japanese baker
came to Denmark to learn all about Danish baking, and then returned to Japan to
share his new recipes with his home country.
Eventually his son and daughter returned to Copenhagen to carry on his
legacy. The legacy of hot dogs.
Andersen Bakery not only sells scrumptious pastries, cakes,
and danishes, but also gourmet hot dogs. So for lunch, we each had a hot dog from the
bakery. It was probably the best hot dog
I’ve ever eaten. It was
glorious.
The sausage was flavorful in itself and then topped with pickled
cucumber, ketchup, spicy mustard, and crispy fried onions all in an artisan bun. I still dream about that hot dog.
Then we rode some rides!
Alyson is not the biggest fan of roller-coasters, but she did great at Tivoli! She rode her first real rollercoaster, the Rutschebanen. Built in 1914, the Rutschebanen is the third oldest roller coaster in the world and boy, did we feel its age creaking along the ancient wooden track.
After that, we went on some of the scarier rides, so Alyson
was nice enough to take pictures while she hung back. Here we are on the swings:
Then we did the bumper cars together and even took a turn on
the merry-go-round.
That was a serious merry-go-round.
I had to climb a ladder to get onto that giraffe!
In Tivoli, one of the rides was the Fairy Tale Chest, which
is kind of like “It’s a Small World” where you fly through the air in a magical
chest and learn all about Europe’s most famous fairy tales. We’d already heard the true story of the Little Mermaid, but during this ride we also learned all about the Little Match
Girl. This is a tale about a child who
wanders the streets on New Year’s Eve trying to sell matches for her abusive
father. She watches all of the families
together for the holidays in their warm, cosy homes… and then she freezes to
death on the side of the road! Remind me never to
buy a real book of fairy tales for Bailey, or any other children we know!
Paul and Alyson in their treasure chest learning all about characters like the Little Match Girl and Numb-Skull Jack. Do you think he was in the inspiration for Simple Jack in Tropic Thunder??
On our final day in Copenhagen we didn’t have time for much,
but we did have time to eat!
We grabbed breakfast at Emmerys bakery and then went
souvenir shopping on Strøget, Copenhagen’s popular pedestrian street.
For our final meal, we headed to Schonnemann to sample some
traditional open-faced sandwiches, or smørrebrøds. Our waitress brought us some aquavit to start
our lunch. The liquor was too strong for
Alyson and me, but the boys enjoyed it.
Schonnemann also brews their own beer, so the Tarts and David each had a
large pint. Then the waitress
recommended that we try two sandwiches each.
David's fried beef tartare
And my chicken bacon on rye with carrot chips, potatoes, and chives
After seeing the size of those things, I think one each would’ve been
enough! But they were really yummy, and
a great way to end our culinary weekend in Denmark!
