Think warm, stay warm

Tried Icelandic beer with dinner

Caught a morning flight from Keflavik to Copenhagen, Denmark 🇩🇰. Although the plane left late, we arrived fairly on time. It was easy to take the train from the airport to Central station. Our hotel - Villa Copenhagen- which was the old post office was just across the street. Nicely designed modern hotel 🏨

Central Train station

Villa Copenhagen - striking red building.

View from our room at night

When we first entered the hotel, we thought it was unusual to have a DJ in the house in the middle of the afternoon and thought the hotel maybe a little too ‘mod’ for us! But although rooms were small, the space was very well utilised. It was important for me that the bathroom was nice and showers good.

Hotel Lobby

We went for a delicious dinner at the old meat packing district. By the way, taxes or VAT here is a hard to swallow - 25%! The Vesterbro neighbourhood used to be a gritty industrial area but is now a popular urban dining area famous for meat and seafood restaurants as well as cocktail bars.

Old Meat packing district

Walking tour of main attractions with our guide - \240Rikke

Grouped at the steps of City Hall. Main building where they found artefacts of the first inhabitants of the city. It was not Absalon who founded city after all, \240although he did write a lot about life then. His statue is the golden one on the building.

City Hall

We passed by interesting points in the old city and learnt about the 3 great fires as well as how the buildings came to be how they are build today.

Among these were palaces like the Christianborg palace- the only one with a lift to the viewing tower. Today it’s where their parliament sits. Outside it, stands the equestrian statue of King Frederick (also known as the father in law of all the European royal families). His 6 children ended up as part of the other royal families in Europe - Greece, UK etc. So his bloodline runs deep in all the European royal families. The thing was, he was only made king \240because of his wife who was the closest relation to the previous king who died.

Christianborg

The tour ended at another palace - Amalienborg - official residence of the Danish royal family. Unlike the British monarchy, the grounds are open to the public although the guards are very fierce and will call you out if you go too near its walls.

Amalienborg

Not far from here was the Marble church- so serene inside with the 12 apostles painted on it’s done shaped ceiling.

Inside the marble church

We walked and walked and walked….from morning till evening. From Amalienborg castle, we continued walking to see the Little Mermaid, made famous by HC Anderson

Little mermaid-human size only

Then it was off to Nyhavn (colourful houses)in Indre By, the oldest part of Copenhagen; previously a seedy sailor’s part of town. It was getting hot and the crowds made it even more tiring. But we had to have an obligatory photo taken here.

Nyhavn colourful houses

We then walked down Europe’s longest pedestrian street - \240Stroget - the \240main shopping street in Copenhagen. It had a mix of international brand stores as well as Danish stores like Illuma and Magazin.

Then an early dinner at a highly recommended Danish eatery- where we had their famous open face sandwiches (smorrebrod) for starters as well as Danish mains like chicken and veal. Of course I had to buy their famous cheesecake at a nearby shop for dessert after.

Smorrebord - with \240fish and prawns served on their standard rye bread

Sitting outdoors was very nice. Most places don’t have aircondtioning here so it was more pleasant outdoors.

Served on lovely plates

Added pancakes for breakfast

🍕Today I’m looking for Europe’s top 5 pizzas - strangely found here in Copenhagen as they have their own field, own cows and make their own cheese for the pizzas. \240Apparently when Barack Obama was here, he went straight for that.

🍺Would like to also try Carlsberg’s 1883 beer. This was created when they found the original yeast used to produce the beer in some empty bottles when moving the Carlsberg factory years ago. They used this to replicate the original beers they had then; hence Carlsberg 1883 was reborn!

UPDATE: Didn’t get to try the above. Maybe next time😊

We did go shopping along Stroget - longest pedestrian street in Europe.

Stroget

Broken up by squares and fountains

Chanced upon the round tower on our way to Torvehallerne KBH

TorvehallerneKBH - place with restaurants, kiosks, food markets. Wasn’t really a large or very interesting place. Thankfully we didn’t plan the day around this attraction. Food was passable, not great.

Danish crowns left over

Leaving Copenhagen - look at the wind turbines in the sea

It was a good trip up to the most northern part of the world for us. A special birthday 🥳 celebration for Chai Teck’s watershed year. For the Chinese, 60 is a big celebration as they say a new life starts after this and each decade hereafter (70,80 etc) must be celebrated in a big way! 🎂