Truly Danish Pastries

We arrived off the coach at around 20:30. I quickly checked the map to the hostel on my phone and then confidently led us in the wrong direction. In my defense it was because I’d assumed the coach would drop us off at the Eurolines office but it actually dropped us at the coach stop. However the early blunder was not indicative of our time in Copenhagen which was fantastic.

We were there for three nights in a really nice (if a bit pricey) hostel sharing our dorm with up to 3 other people. Everyone was very amenable although one night a guy arrived at around 22:30 and proceeded to stage whisper “I’ve got bunk 4, who’s in 4?“. When he discovered that there was someone in 4 he then forced them to move, ignoring their protestations of “I have a fear of top bunks”. This was our first exposure to the fierce competition for bottom bunks. Backpackers are an amenable and accepting bunch but they will turn on you if it means sleeping a meter closer to the ground.

The city centre is spacious, with grand buildings lining wide streets. We had no problem getting around; mostly by foot but we also got one metro towards the end of our time there just to see what it was like.  We visited the National Museum of Denmark and learned that the vikings weren’t as bad as all the biased pro-Anglo-Saxon propaganda we are fed in Britain would have us believe. We visited several bakeries and discovered that danish pastries are varied and delicious. And we climbed a church tower with an ominous sign saying “we accept no responsibility for injuries incurred whilst climbing this tower” which was not reassuring.

The botanical gardens were a definite highlight, the cactus house was closed which upset Rosanna but the rest of the part was accessible and enjoyable – I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

It was while we were sat in a cafe in Copenhagen that we discovered that there had been an attack in Stockholm, the day before we visited. It was terrible news, especially coming so soon after the one in St Petersburg which is where we are headed after Stockholm. These acts are designed to be shocking, it is their purpose to seem larger and more threatening than they actually are. There are 2.3 million people living in Stockholm, 4.6 million in St Petersburg. Although tragic these attacks statistically pose less of a threat to an individual person than travelling by road or not wearing enough sun cream. So we will continue, because these two great cities have so much to offer that it really is not worth missing out on.

Full pictures from Copenhagen: