Sisters take Copenhagen!

We were all so excited to have my sister Allison come visit us in July!! She was here for about a week, and we had a good time exploring around Cambridgeshire and also down to London for a day. The highlight of her trip (for me) was getting to take a sisters' trip to Copenhagen, Denmark for two days while she was here. Paul kindly took care of Charlotte while we left for about 44 hours or so :) 

We headed to Luton airport early one morning, as our flight was around 8 am. This was my first experience flying in and out of Luton -- it's fairly close to us (as compared to Heathrow and Gatwick), but I have to say I wasn't overly impressed. It felt like it needed some significant updating. It didn't help that the off-site parking place we used (Paige parking) was kind of far from the airport, and upon our return it took a LONG time to get back to our car as we had to wait forever for the shuttle to arrive, and then had to wait some more until the shuttle bus was full to make the return bus trip to the parking spot. I'd use a different company next time (writing this here mostly to remind myself in the future!). 

After a little bit of stress standing in a long line at the airport to check in, we made it through security and to our flight in plenty of time. We had an uneventful flight to Copenhagen, and then took the train easily in to the city center. We walked to our hotel (the long way around!) and they kindly allowed us to leave our backpacks there even though it was before check-in time. We found our way to a popular lunch spot, Cafe Dyrehaven, in nearby Vesterbro (the up-and-coming hipster area) and enjoyed our first taste of Danish food! They don't have diet Coke in Denmark, but "frittz-kola" was an excellent substitute. I also had my most Danish food of the weekend -- "smorrebrod." It's an open-faced sandwich on dense bread (usually rye) with lots of toppings! I believe mine had potatoes and onion crisps and something else I can't quite recall. It was great! 

Smorrebrod with Frittz-Kola

After lunch, we rented bikes from Baisikeli, a spot near our hotel in Vesterbro for the afternoon. In those few hours, we accomplished a lot! We took our bikes across a bridge to Christianshavn, another area of the city. We visited the Vor Frelsers Kirke, famous for it's twirly spire. We didn't actually go in the church itself, but waited in line to ascend the 400 steps to the stop of the spire! Once we got started up the steps, it was clear why they limit the number of people entering at any one time. There are steep ladder-like steps almost all the way up, and then the outer steps are somewhat nerve-wracking in the wind so people move slowly. The views from the top were outstanding! Luckily neither of us is terrified of heights, but we did see a few people emerge onto the lower terrace of the spire, turn rather pale, and immediately attempt to go back inside and down the steps. A few others were bravely clinging to the wall of the spire as they went up a few steps. We made it to the very top, which is barely wide enough for one adult. We had great views over the city! Luckily/unluckily, we missed hearing the bell carillon ring while we were there -- apparently it is very loud inside the spire, with a warning light present to let people know when it's about to start, presumably so they don't fall off a ladder in surprise.

Allie climbing the spire of Vor Frelsers Kirke

Views over Copenhagen

Warning for the church bells!

Outside shot of Vor Frelsers Kirke spire

After leaving the church, we headed to the unusual neighborhood of Christiania. It was formerly a military installation, which was dismantled and then locals entered in the 1970s and "squatted" there. It's been a hotbed of controversy ever since, but open to tourists and a popular spot to walk through. We did walk through, but it wasn't the most comfortable place to be and we weren't there long. There were lots of stalls of people selling "soft" drugs and paraphernalia, but no real hawking of wares being done.

Allie at the gates to Christiania

After leaving Christiania, we biked over to Nyhavn. Although the name translates as "New Harbor," it is a canal dug in the 17th century. It was originally a cargo ship unloading area, and known as a rather gritty area until the 1960s. Now it's home to lots of restaurants, beautifully repainted townhomes (including the one-time home of Hans Christian Anderson), and some old wooden ships. Quite touristy but enjoyable!

Nyhavn

Selfie at Nyhavn

We started heading back towards our hotel on our bikes, and luckily caught sight of some people using the in-ground sidewalk trampolines on the waterfront just south of Nyhavn. We had a blast jumping around and didn't have much competition for them! I had heard of them prior to visiting Copenhagen, but it was such a fun surprise to stumble across them.

View of Papiroen (Paper Island) across the waterfront from Nyhavn

We biked back through the city, past Tivoli Gardens, and returned our bicycles to the rental shop. We then walked back to our hotel and got into our room. We had grand plans to grab dinner and then try to visit Tivoli Gardens at night, as we had heard of a cool fountain display that is done just before Tivoli closes. However, we ended up relaxing a bit at the hotel first, then spending a nice long time at dinner and decided to visit Tivoli the next day.

Our dinner was amazing -- a very small Italian/Mediterranean place called Trattoria Aperitivo. We didn't have reservations, but sat outside in the courtyard. The waitress was so sweet and brought us blankets in case we got cold, and gave us fantastic service for the entire night. It was a very elegant buffet style dinner, which was even better than the reviews had said. I'd highly recommend it!

View from our hotel -- that's a swimming area built right into the waterway! We didn't have our suits.

The next morning, we enjoyed the breakfast offered by the hotel, then took the train further into the city and walked down to the waterfront to take a boat tour of the city. We were super impressed by our tour guide, who easily spoke both English and French (no Danish people were on our tour) and even sang a French folk tune as we went under a bridge at the end. The French tourist group ate. it. up. There were a few people in the tourist group who were making the guide nervous as they wouldn't sit down as we approached the very low bridges -- but everyone escaped with their heads.

Views from the boat tour

Going under one of the low bridges

Old ferry terminal for Sweden (no longer in use due to the bridge now in place). The building is now used for cafes and boutiques.

Houseboat in Christianshavn

Christianshavn

After the boat tour, we walked to the Amalienborg Palace and walked through the main square there before heading back toward Amaliehavn (along the waterfront). The guards at the Palace reminded me of certain other guards at a certain other palace a little closer to home :)

Frederiks Kirke as seen from the Amalienborg Square

Then we walked back across the bridge to visit Paper Island (Papiroen), which is an old shipping container warehouse now converted into food stalls! It was amazing! There were so many choices it was really hard to decide -- but we ended up getting some falafel, fries, and shared a beer. We got there before it got really crowded, so we were able to get a seat inside (nice since it was drizzly outside at the time). The boat tour guide told us that Paper Island may be put to a different use in 2017, but I don't know for sure if that is true. For now -- it's definitely worth a visit.

Inside Paper Island's food hall

After leaving Paper Island, we walked down the Stroget, which is a long pedestrian shopping district. It was starting to rain in earnest at that point, so we ducked into a couple of shops along the way. We finally got to Tivoli Gardens, which is the second oldest amusement park in the world. It was really a sweet place, with lots of rides packed into a pretty small area. We rode a roller coaster and did the tall "drop ride" -- my favorite!! There are still lots of gardens in the area, and we enjoyed a tasty ice cream cone after riding. We noted that although most of Copenhagen is very English-friendly, almost none of the signage in Tivoli was written in anything but Danish. We had to ask what all the ice cream flavors were :) It seemed to indicate that Tivoli is still very much for the Danish people, despite being a tourist draw.

The "drop ride" -- so fun and screamy!

Looking across Tivoli from our "ice cream bench"

From Tivoli, we realized we still had plenty of time before our 10 pm flight! So we ended up taking the train up toward the Kastellet, an old star-shaped fort north of the center of town. It's most famous for being the home of the statue of the Little Mermaid, written by Hans Christian Anderson. We ended up getting a bit turned around and walked way further than we had to in order to find the statue. It was mobbed with tourists as usual, but we managed to get a couple of pictures before heading back.

The Little Mermaid, with the new power plant/ski jump behind it (across the river, and yes, really, that's what they plan to use it for!)

After our trek, we wanted to relax, so we headed to a cafe in Vesterbro for a nice long cup of coffee and to put our feet up before taking the train back to the airport. It was a nice, relaxing way to finish a day when we walked over 32,000 steps (per my FitBit). Our trip back was long but uneventful, and we made it home just before 2 am. What a great city, and so much fun to see with my sister!