I’ve built some great friendships with a lot of Danes (one is the godfather of my child) during the past 12 years of traveling, hence I’ve always wanted to check out Denmark after hearing so many different stories about the great quality of life there.
While I’m currently touring Europe, I made sure to include a few days in Copenhagen, and what follows is a few notes on 3 nights spent in the beautiful capital:
1. Getting to the city from the airport is a total breeze with the metro line connecting both in 13 minutes.
2. You can purchase a SIM card in vending machines located within the arrivals hall at the airport (by the baggage carousel). The one I purchased was with Lebara and included 5GB of data and some minutes/sms messages for 98DKK.
3. We stayed at this Airbnb with a really nice guy from Iceland. Highly recommended.
4. After following Restaurant 108, opened by former Noma employees and which is also backed by René Redzepi, the founder of Noma, on Instagram for a year or so, this was the restaurant I wanted to “splurge” on knowing Noma are currently touring in Mexico. And I’m glad we did – while the meal was not cheap, it was fantastic – with amazing cooking techniques you don’t often see elsewhere.
5. For more great eats, I highly recommend you check out Paper Island, which houses 20-30 different street food vendors under one roof with an outside seating area which is the perfect spot to sit back with a drink and spend time with friends.
The Torvehallerne food market is also worth a walk around where you’ll find a branch of The Coffee Collective (many say they serve the best coffee in the city) and Grød, serving up some of the best porridge I’ve ever had.
Still hungry? Also worth checking out is Meyers Bageri for some of the best home baked pastries I’ve ever had and Grams Lækkerier, a small sandwich shop my local friend Lara took me to which is run by who has got to be one of the friendliest guys in Copenhagen.
6. There were more bikes registered in Copenhagen than there were cars in 2017, and as a result, it’s a great city to explore on bike. I rented one from Copenhagen Bicycles and had no issues.
7. I highly recommend checking out Copenhagens ‘free world’, a “self-proclaimed autonomous neighborhood of about 850 residents“. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else, and if you like to smoke weed, this is the place to come to purchase some of the good stuff (it was laid out on tables for sale in the open when I visited).
8. Copenhagen does live up to its reputation as being one of the most expensive cities in the world. It was sometimes astounding how expensive it was ($60 to rent a bike for an afternoon or $10 for a coffee?!!). With that said, we had a great 3 days and while we won’t be back in a hurry, I could highly recommend it to those who haven’t visited before.
