FIRST LEG - Copenhagen & area
We landed in cloudy and wet Copenhagen on October 1, 2014 for the first day of our belated honeymoon, and headed into city central to find our hotel and rest up a little (having not be able to get too much sleep on the flight). After a room upgrade, so we could have early check-in and a quick nap we hit the city to take in the sights and sounds (both of which we learned there were a great deal of).
Our first journey was into the shopping district/pedestrian areas. A busy and bustling place with seemingly everyone carrying a newly acquired item – these people love to shop. We also like shopping but quickly learned that most items are two to three times the cost of most items we can readily get at home. We kept our shopping to a minimum and spend most of our dollars on food.
The second journey had us jumping a train north to the town of Hillerød. This was a wonderful little town housing not only Frederiksborg Castle, but also a delightful and affordable Danish bakery. The chocolate croissants were fresh and full of tasty nutrition. After touring the castle (slot), we jumped another train to Helsingør and were welcomed by a misting rain (thankfully for our rainwear). Here, we walked about 15 minutes to another castle – Kronborg Castle, also referred to as Hamlet’s Castle. By the time we had reached the castle and started walking the grounds the misting rain was larger and heavier, so after a few quick shots we decided it best to excuse our selves to the café of the Danish Maritime Museum (although we didn’t visit the museum). This is where we dried off a bit, and decided to have a quick lunch – Two orders of a hotdog & fries with a cappuccino & a beer for the equivalent of $50 CDN. This is also where we debated taking the ferry into Sweden, if it was sunny and nice it may have been a harder decision, but the $110 per person ticket cost had us putting it off.
Day 3 turned out to be what I think was our favourite day in Copenhagen – we jumped a train for Malmö, Sweden mostly so I could add another flag/badge to my backpack. For me, most of my souvenirs are flags or badges for my knapsack. Little did we know, we would really like the vibe of Sweden, of course it could be the quiet sleepy town compared to the major city. Malmö is a mix of modern and historic from what we saw as we were only there for a few hours, but it made us smile and feel comfortable. After hopping the train “home” we did a little more bumbling and rested up for the second part of the day – a photo session I had secretly planned with Alan Brandt Photography. Alan is an IT Consultant turn photographer and could put up with Candy and I being us, I give him respect in dealing with people and genuinely enjoying the time, or a damn-fine actor. Having Alan take us to the photo session was nice, because not only will we have some great photos together here in Copenhagen, but we also got to see some of the sites we were going to walk to anyway and some of the city we never would have.
After Alan dropped us back at the hotel we needed to find food, and food on a budget. We took a stroll back into the pedestrian area to see what we could find and settled on a hole-in-the-wall street vendor – Wok & Walk. It was a decent finish to our stay in Denmark and although we would never spend $15 per person for a box of noodles in Markham, it was warming and flavourful (even the ladies hair I had in mine was fine).
To sum it up, Copenhagen is a good first leg of our two-week European adventure, and although we won’t be back anytime soon (unless we win that Copenhagen trip from the Bay), we have made some lasting memories together as one of our many shared “firsts.” I’m writing this at around 3 am due to the insane amount of street noise from the Friday night festivities for the locals… train at 7:30 am to Hamburg, Germany.
Cheers!
REN
