Ah Copenhagen, Danish jewel, the place where Hans Christian Anderson got his fairy tale on and home of the $20 burger – no fries, that’s an extra 6 bucks!  This city is as expensive as it is beautiful.

We arrived in Copenhagen just after 9 pm, and were immediately struck by how cool this city is. As we made our way to our hostel, we walked by a large group of locals as they sat at picnic tables covered with checkered tablecloths enjoying food and drink sold by the stalls nearby. The sun setting on the horizon and a cool breeze in the air. This was a very good sign that we would love Copenhagen.

While in Copenhagen, we stayed at Hotel Jorgensen. The hotel also functions as hostel and the hostel rooms are relegated to some weird basement labyrinth of rooms, bathrooms, dorms, lockers and possibly the most depressing common areas and eating room I’ve ever seen.  The hotel guests, of course, were treated to above ground rooms, while we slept in a 6 bed dorm with barred basement windows and huge shared bathroom with 3 showers (only one functional) and 3 toilets, still heaps better than the place in Amsterdam.  The fact that it is within walking distance of 7-eleven makes the location ideal. For, if not for the 7-eleven, we would have starved.

On the first morning in Copenhagen, we joined a free walking tour, it was pretty good and an easy 4km walk – no stairs or hills. If you are in Copenhagen do this tour!  The guides can be found on the steps of the city hall twirling their neon green umbrellas. You can also register online for the tour if you like to plan ahead.

Daniel, our guide was really good and I learned quite a bit about Copenhagen.  Here are a few fun facts coming at you –

1) Hans Christian Andersen was not originally from Copenhagen, he made his way there at the age of 14 so he could pursue his dream of becoming a ballet dancer. Turns out he was shit at it and decided to try acting instead. He was equally bad at that. He then tried singing and it turned out he was pretty good at that, unfortunately, his voice cracked and his days as a singer were short lived. However, he did have a knack for telling stories and he used that talent to keep the young children in the boys’ choirs entertained between performance. His reputation as a storyteller grew and with it his fame and fortune.

2) Danes’ income tax rate starts at 35% and sales tax is around 25%. That does seem really high, but keep in mind that they don’t pay for health care, school, or university. University students are also provided with a monthly stipend of about 5,000DKK to cover rent, books, food, etc. with enough money left over for beer!

3) The Queen of Denmark is an accomplished artist and speaks 6 languages. She is so talented in fact that she translated and drew the illustrations for the Danish version of The Lord Of The Rings. Tolkien was so impressed that he used her illustrations in other translated versions of the novel.

At the end of our walking tour, we decided to check out Europe’s second most disappointing tourist attraction ‘The Little Mermaid’. It didn’t disappoint in being disappointing. It was pretty easy to find, all we had to do was look for the throngs of tourists lining up on the horizon. We of course joined the line and as we jockeyed for position to have our photo snapped with the tiny landmark, some unfortunate older gentlemen tried to climb up on some rocks to get a better picture and ended up falling ass over tea kettle into the water and seaweed – it took a couple people to fish him out. He was uninjured, though probably a bit embarrassed.

Following the ‘show’ at the Little Mermaid, we explored the nearby park – the parks in Copenhagen are absolutely stunning.  The locals love the parks, and it’s easy to see why – all manner of birds and sculptures and even a windmill can be spotted in the parks. We spent one afternoon napping on the grass in the large cemetery park while the sun shone high in the sky.

Our tour guide had recommended that we visit some of the local microbreweries of Copenhagen so we stopped by the Norrebod Bruyhus. The brew house itself was really quite nice, a 2 level, open brewery and pub with exposed brick, wrought iron, wood and stark modern lighting. A perfect contrast of old and new. The men behind the bar, donned in black shirt and suspenders with manicured beards and waxed mustaches happily recommended a few beers for us to sample and we tried their lager, red ale and dark lager. All three were delicious, but not cheap at about $12 a pint.  The place was attended mostly by locals who were more than happy to chat with us about their wonderful city.

On another friend’s recommendation we made out way to Copenhagen Street Food. An old industrial park converted into a street food venue featuring dozens of swanky and upscale street food vendors selling all things delicious!  The crowd was mostly local and decidedly hipster.  The venue itself was ultra cool complete with DJ, mirror balled cow and open fires to sit by while enjoying your food and drinks. They had everything from Asian dishes like Kung Pao chicken to Brazilian churrasco to gourmet burgers, pizza, seafood – I mean the list goes on.  We toured the various stalls before deciding on Brazilian churrasco and Asian style BBQ ribs with double fried duck fat fries. Oh. My. God!

On our final night in the city, we decided to try the Copenhagen Pub Crawl – organized by the same company that does the walking tours.  For 100DKK, you get a free drink at each of the four stops along the way, as well as various discounts on beer and alcohol.  The tour starts at 8pm near the anchor at the Nyhavn canal and lasts until well into the evening.  It’s a great way to meet fellow travelers and locals alike.  We quite enjoyed it, but left after the third stop since we were flying out the next afternoon.  Which was too bad, since the final stop was running an ‘all you can drink’ promo for the first hour after our arrival.  Probably best 🙂

Our last stop in Copenhagen was the Tivoli, Europe’s oldest amusement park featuring the second oldest roller coaster.  The park is located in the middle of the city and is truly something to behold. It has a fairytale like feel to it and the rides are absolutely beautiful. The park does charge admission (about $20), rides are extra, unless you buy the unlimited day pass ($60). The unlimited pass is a good deal, as we worked out the price for tickets on some of the rides and they averaged about $15 per ride in some cases. We toured Tivoli Gardens taking in the sights and sounds of the amusement park and enjoying a meal of fish and chips under the trees during our final few hours in Copenhagen – definitively a hyggelig day.