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Wonderful Copenhagen: a long weekend discovering the charming culture of Denmark’s stunning capital city…
"Denmark’s capital has long been synonymous with design, sustainability, fashion and innovation; it’s easy to see why its inhabitants are some of the happiest on earth!" - So spake the World of Wanderlust Travel Blog in 2015 on the small yet beautiful city of Copenhagen...so what better place to escape to for a weekend getaway before the end of term exams began!
The mountains lay covered in snow as we took off from Geneva, and as we drove through the night-time streets of Copenhagen to our hotel, .jpg)
they were strung with vivid, winking fairy lights. We woke in the morning excited for a day of Christmas market festivities and discovering the local culture - and we were going to be travelling in style too: on our Hop On, Hop Off crimson double-decker bus! First stop (of course): one of the Christmas markets for a post-breakfast snack of mini-pancakes with Nutella and gingerbread flavoured lattes. As we reached Old Amagertorv Square, we could hear the singing of a busker perched with his guitar on the wall of Stork Fountain; to his delight, Fer began pirouetting; Roby and Lucia seized hands and began tangoing up and down the square; and various other girls started dancing too - it was a lovely moment.
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We hopped back on the bus and were whisked through the sights of, among others, the changing of the Royal Guard at the palace; the wistful The Little Mermaid gazing out over the cold grey sea; the Copenhagen shoreline seen from the Royal Opera House; and the famous Danish architect Bjarke Ingels' roof top ski slope, CopenHill (I’m definitely bringing my skis next time!). We were then dropped in the city centre for an afternoon of roaming the sweetly scented cobbled .JPG)
roads of the Christmas Markets and strolling beneath the heart-shaped fairy lights of Strøget, the pedestrianised shopping street. Our full first day finished with a traditional Danish buffet dinner at a restaurant beside picturesque Nyhavn harbour, famous for its brightly coloured building facades.
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On Sunday, we donned our bobble hats and cosy mittens for a day in the winter wonderland of Tivoli Gardens, the world's second oldest fairground. The air was thick with the aromas of cinnamon and pine, and glittering snow clung to the trees. A favourite ride was Star Flyer - spinning swings that rose high above the rooftops of Copenhagen so we could see the city we had spent the previous day exploring. Our eventful weekend finished with a Sunday morning by the seashore - wandering the windswept grounds and majestic rooms of Kronborg Castle, the inspiration for Elsinore Castle in Shakespeare's tragedy, "Hamlet". Unlike the characters of "Hamlet", however, we left the castle with our numbers still intact! The only drama the vast, black and white tiled floor of the ballroom witnessed was the students of Surval once again demonstrating their dance skills – the security guard did look rather alarmed as Mariia, Liza and Laura caught hands and began “ice-skating” across the room, but by the time Fer, Isabella, Carla and Co began practising their pirouettes, he was smiling. A final obligatory shop at the castle gift shop (I went home with a Christmas tree decoration of Hamlet holding up “poor Yorick”) and then it was time to board the bus for the journey home..jpg)
What else to say about our weekend in Denmark’s capital? – it’s easy to see why there’s a song entitled “Wonderful Copenhagen”!
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