Being a teacher, I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to travel every summer. When I was 15 years old I took my first trip to France. Since then I have been instilled with a passion for traveling, a love of seeing the world, and a passion for experiencing other cultures. If I hadn’t taken a trip in high school with my French teacher (thanks mom and dad!) I would be a completely different woman. While I have traveled many times in groups I hadn’t (at this point) traveled much without a HUGE group of students following my every lead. And this is why I decided to travel to Scandinavia- with my Scandinavian adventure starting with Copenhagen, Denmark.
The countries I was going to be exploring were locations that I didn’t have a lot of information about. Places that I didn’t learn about in history class, places where I couldn’t speak or read the language. And luckily, after I started talking about traveling, my two friends Erin and Heidi decided they wanted to go too. After finding amazing ticket prices we couldn’t turn it down!
Prepping for the Scandinavian Adventure
To prep for our trip we watched some Rick Steve’s videos to get a basic orientation of the countries we were going to. We rented a car so we could stop and go on our trip as we wanted. To get an idea of what we wanted to see during our massive trip I relied mostly on travel blogs. We didn’t write out a day-by-day itinerary, deciding instead that we would stay in locations as long as we saw fit. At the same time, we also knew that we had a lot that we wanted to see, so we knew we couldn’t linger too long anyplace we went. We also were planning on doing something I didn’t have a lot of experience with- camping! So we bought some supplies to face the great outdoors.
My 1st travel tip: If you want to find cheap tickets, look into www.skyscanner.com They even have an option of saying you want to travel to any country from the United States with open dates and they will just find whatever incredible deals are out there. And since my friends and I are teachers, and have summers off, we could just go with whatever cheap deal we could. And I’m just going to put it all out there, we got tickets from Boston to Copenhagen round trip for under $400. It’s an amazing deal, we couldn’t pass it up. Our flight was with Air Canada. I had never traveled with them before and they were awesome!
Flying to Copenhagen
Let’s begin with our first day of travel; our initial flight was from Columbus to Boston, booked separately from the SkyScanner deal we had already purchased. (Boston to Copenhagen was the amazing deal we found. Be adaptable to where you fly in and out of, if possible, and you can save lots of money). We had a long layover in Boston, and we thought we would be able to get out and explore the city for the day. However, our arrival into Boston was delayed because the airport there was down a runway, so we had less time to explore Boston once we arrived.
We went to check in to Air Canada early, to see if we could dump our luggage before exploring the city. Upon arrival they told us they wanted to put us on standby for an earlier flight because of the amount of flights being cancelled. Those customer service ladies were exceptionally kind and caring. Our planned day jaunt in Boston was off, but we luckily got on the standby flight and made it to Toronto for our connection into Copenhagen. It was the start of my Scandinavian adventure in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Busing in Copenhagen (or the humorous tale of finding the Airbnb)
We arrived in Copenhagen the morning of June 28th at 10am, and had booked an Airbnb in advance (one of the few things we had planned out before leaving). Problem number one- we had no idea how to get to our Airbnb. Our host had told us to take a bus straight there, but not the bus numbers! We had to figure out, from the airport, to take a train to the main terminal to there find a bus. We were lugging all our luggage (of which we packed way TOO much in MUCH too large of suitcases), we were sleep deprived, we didn’t speak the language or have any cash…in short, it took us awhile.
We figured out the correct bus to take by jumping on a random bus and asking the driver for help. This is also how we found out that cash is necessary for riding a bus in Copenhagen. This lead us to miss that bus and led me on a search of a nearby ATM. Hey- helpful travel hint #2- have that countries currency ready (at least a little bit- and airports have ATMs).
Once on a bus neither we, nor the bus driver, could understand the address we were given by our host. Our bus driver tried to help us, but after a couple stops he started asking every. single. person getting on the bus to try and help the tourists. So many people attempted to help us out, and not one person sneered or seemed annoyed by our confusion. Eventually we found someone who thought they knew what stop we should get off on. It ended up that the accents in the address weren’t coming through on the text messages (it was reading Dansh?jvej).
Off the bus, and still lost..
When we descended the bus, we still had no idea where to go, and our navigation systems on our phones weren’t working. We started walking (it had started raining by then, of course) and we weren’t feeling confident about what we were doing. To top it off (because yes, there’s more), Heidi’s luggage didn’t have a pull bar. Dragging her luggage proved to be very difficult, it was banging against her legs and she was falling behind. Then, like an angel descending from heaven, a lady on a bike rode by and helped us out. We found the street we were looking for, which was especially lucky since we weren’t headed AT ALL in the right direction.
So we learned quickly that navigating would at times be difficult, but that Danish people were very, very kind. Helpful travel hint #3- know how to get around when you arrive in case your internet cell connection isn’t great (this is a no-duh one right??). My Scandinavian adventure in Copenhagen, Denmark was off to a rocky, albeit humourous, start.
Airbnb Copenhagen
Our Airbnb was so cute! We were in a basement apartment and there were chickens in the front yard- check out that climbing wall on the house and all the flowers! Despite being so tired we didn’t stick around the house long. We only had a day and a half to explore Copenhagen so we needed to get going!
Exploring the center of Copenhagen
We walked back to the bus stop and headed into the center of town. We did not have a plan, but we were open and ready for anything. Someone suggested descending at a stop only because it seemed busy. This was the Magasin du Nord- a department store in the heart of Copenhagen.
We walked through the mall the Magasin du Nord was attached to, and came out onto a pedestrian street with lots of shops.
It was raining slightly but already we were in love. Just look at the buildings in Copenhagen- some so colorful and inviting, and others simply so regal-looking.
Vikings Biking
One thing we noticed right away, besides the colorful buildings, were the mass amounts of bikes. We quickly found out that Copenhagen is a major biking city. Over 35% of people commute to work or school by bike. In fact, the number of people biking in Copenhagen is higher than the total number of people who ride bikes in the entire United States! As we heard it referred to later, you need to watch out for those ‘Vikings biking’- haha! Not only are there were bike lanes running alongside all the roads, but they also have their own signals with the traffic lights! And let me tell you, the bikers are fearless! But this day, just like bikes, we were “two-tired” to go for a ride ; )
Continuing our wanderings in Copenhagen
We were just wandering around, no map, and no clue where we were going (one of my favorite ways to explore). We found the Royal Danish theatre, and further down the street we saw a brick building with a beautiful courtyard that we had to walk through.
I know now that this was the Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum. We walked through it, and noticed that one of the buildings had orange objects hanging out of all the windows.
When I got home I had to look up what this was about. This is an art piece by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. He has taken salvaged life jackets worn by migrants and has called it “Soleil Levant”, which means “Sunrise” in French. This art installation was to bring attention to the refugee crisis in Europe. I love it.
And surprise…Nyhavn Harbour
And that is when we realized that we had effortlessly and haphazardly found our way to what is undoubtedly the most photographed spot of Copenhagen: the Nyhavn harbour. And man, in person it is even more incredible than pictures can capture. It was a rainy, cloudy, dreary day, but when you’re there standing on the pier you wouldn’t even know it. The colors are so bright, the atmosphere so lively, all the smiles of the people walking by so wide…nothing else seemed to matter. I know, it sounds so cheesy, but hopefully you’ll see if for yourself one day and you’ll think “oh yeah, I get it now”. Be prepared for beautiful photo overload.
Canal Cruise
We were feeling very exhausted from the long day of travel and lack of sleep, but we decided that a harbour/canal cruise would be perfect. There are several cruises that start there at the Nyhavn harbour. We chose one that was less expensive because “it isn’t as nice a boat”. Trust me, it did it’s job. The tour lasted about an hour and we got to see lots of sights.
One interesting thing about the Nyhavn is that Hans Christian Anderson lived in one of the houses. It’s the red building, can you spot it?
One of the first sights on our canal tour was the Opera of Copenhagen, which opened in 2005. Check out this roof! Its the size of three football fields. We also spotted the royal family’s yacht.
More sights on the cruise
Next we saw the Danish Royal Playhouse, and a building called the Black Diamond. The Black Diamond contains the Royal Danish Library, completed in 1999. Inside there is also an auditorium used for concerts, called the Queen’s Hall, and a few museums.
From our non-glamorous boat we also saw the back of the famous Little Mermaid statue. Made in 1913 by Edvard Eriksen, it’s always a huge tourist attraction. However, it is a bit of a walk away from the rest of Copenhagen. When we saw the huge mass of crowds around her we accepted that this would be our sole meeting with The Little Mermaid. The poor girl is only 4 feet tall but unfortunately often gets lots of bad attention. She is vandalized frequently by political activists. Most recently (at the time of our visit) she was splashed in red paint to protest whaling. (I’m pretty sure she doesn’t partake in whaling however.)
There were lots of other lovely sights from the canal cruise. The boats don’t just stick to the wide waters, but also wind through some neighborhoods. They go under bridges (some that seemed very low) and pass lots of docked boats of all shapes and sizes. In short, it’s a great way to see the city.
That canal cruise was not only beautiful, but also great at eliciting sleepiness- we were rocked into little naps. So, after the cruise, it was a pretty easy decision for us to head back to our Airbnb for a full night of sleep. Our first day in Copenhagen was beautiful and exciting, and the perfect orientation into the city. I hope you enjoyed this part of my Scandinavian adventure in Copenhagen, Denmark. Be sure to check out the blog post for my Scandinavian adventure- day two!
