One of the cool perks of living in London: we found some cheap flights to Copenhagen, so we decided to check it out for a weekend! It was the first time either of us had been to a Scandinavian country and we really enjoyed its mix of old and new architecture, large green spaces, cute canals, and dedicated bike lanes meandering throughout the city. We could easily walk everywhere and the city felt so clean and peaceful everywhere we wandered.
Here are some interesting facts that we learned about Copenhagen while in the metro:
- 1.2 million people live in Copenhagen.
- The Danish royal family is the oldest in the world. Oh! We didn't even know they had a royal family!
- 55% of people cycle to work. This was easily believable after witnessing the crazy number of bikes and cyclist in the streets. Even more amazing was noticing that they rarely bother locking the bikes to a rack/pole/fence - they simply lock the back wheel.. in fact, many of the bikes weren't locked in any way at all!
- It has the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe. Interesting fact, but Strøget street turned out to be our least favourite area to wander.
Views from the Rundetaarn
Naps in parks.. is this becoming a habit..? We must be getting old!! :)
We also went to a part of the city called Freetown Christiania, which is apparently a self-proclaimed autonomous neighbourhood. It’s a totally different hippy-like world where the buildings are graffitied, several areas smells like the Paris metro (ie. pee), and marihuana is apparently tolerated... or if it’s not, the guy with the big bag of weed next to us, didn't get the memo.
Can't forget to mention a few memorable food experiences!
Kanelstaenger from Holms Bager, a bakery near the Christiania metro station.
Smørrebrød and Tapas from the Torvehallerne market.
A delicious Moroccon Flatbread sandwich from the Marrakech stall at http://copenhagenstreetfood.dk/en/.
