Thursday 1. April
Travel started, as it often does, with an ungodly early wake-up. Traveled from Turku to Helsinki-Vantaa Airport into the rising sun.
No problems at the airport, security line had a wait of about 5 minutes and we had checked in the evening before over the Internet. Flight was uneventful, not counting a couple of crying children.
Copenhagen had a blue sky as we arrived but turned windier and grayer over the afternoon. Trains run every 20 minutes into the city center but lines to ticket-terminals were surprisingly long when we arrived so we grabbed a bite to eat at the airport before leaving. We checked into our hotel, Grand Hotel Copenhagen ( http://www.grandhotelcopenhagen.com/ ), which was reasonably priced and very close to the central train station.
Side note: I’ve had luck picking hotels from the Ebookers site, they aren’t the cheapest but there are always reasonable alternatives and they have been of high quality.
After checking in we walked to the “Rådhusplads” where Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! has a museum. I’ve been there before as a kid and thought Riikka would like it so we went in there. It’s an interesting place, I found it interesting to go back now too since it has been years and I have a new perspective on the weird things.
We bought combo tickets that got us into the HC Andersen “tour” as well that is adjacent to Believe it or Not but that was a bit of a letdown. It was mostly just (well-made) scenes out of his childhood and some of his stories but didn’t feel as “alive” as Believe It Or Not.
Afterwards we walked Ströget all the way down to Nyhavn, which is a little touristy harbor with lots of eateries and patio-bars but since the weather was getting worse all the time we snapped some pictures and turned around and went back to the hotel via a nice little Italian place on Ströget.
Friday 2. April
One of the reasons I wanted to go to Copenhagen, apart from it being one of the cheapest and easiest alternatives when we (belatedly) started planning a trip for easter, was that it was close by to Helsingborg where I lived for 5 years with the family (age 10-15). I also spent the summer of 2003 working there. I wanted to see what had changed and show Riikka my second hometown.
On friday we took the train first to Helsingör which is north of Copenhagen, on the danish side of Öresund. Helsingör is a pretty little city right over the water from Helsingborg. Long friday and the windy, cold weather kept everyone home or away so we had most of central Helsingör to ourselves. Surprisingly the ferry was pretty packed with people however.
We walked around a bit in central Helsingborg but it was as empty as Helsingör so we soon took the bus to Rydebäck, a suburb to Helsingborg where we actually lived. Rydebäck has since grown some but most notably gotten its own train-station, which we used on our way back to Copenhagen via Malmö (completing our trip around the Öresund-region).
Thanks to the bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen the Öresund-region has become a very vibrant area and it shows in both infrastructure but also the mood. It’s a very urban yet nice environment, public transport works and there are people in motion even on slow days like this eastern friday. Finland has a lot to learn about public transport, here it really seems like a genuinely good idea to use public transport while in Finland it feels like a chore - either because you don’t have a car or want to be environmental.
The weather improved all through to day and the evening was a pleasant spring evening. Unfortunately it was ruined by my childhood memories being shattered. I’ve always been a science geek so for the young me, the impressive IMAX science shows at the Tycho Brahe Planetarium were the highlight of any trip to Copenhagen. This time they have “upgraded” the projectors to 3D, which means that the 1000 m^2 screen was much darker and had less vivid colors than before. Compared to the awesome nature shows available nowadays, like Life from BBC, the IMAX show felt cheap and simply didn’t impress. Sorry to say I will not be going to any more IMAX-theaters anymore.
Saturday 3. April
Riikka is a big fan of gardening, plants and green things like that so of course we had to go to the Botanical Gardens. It helped that they opened up early too. The Copenhagen Botanical Gardens are quite large and very pretty but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
Saturday was only the only full day that wasn’t a holiday so we returned to a now rather busy Ströget for some window-shopping. Didn’t buy much though, unfortunately global commerce has made shopping a very similar experience everywhere you go. Very much the same brands and same types of stores, nothing surprising or delighting. That said, I did get a new pair of jeans for those who care.
One of the biggest and nicest surprises of the trip was the Ny-Carlsberg Glyptotek. Surprising because it was so big, beautiful and awesome but I had never heard of it. Apparently the heir of the founder of the Carlsberg breweries was a huge art, and especially sculpture, fan. The Glyptotek is not just his collection but in large parts based on his collection of sculptures and both the building and the scale of it was really impressive! We spent a lot of time there but its one of those places that are too big to see in one go. Go see it if you go to Copenhagen!
Sunday 4. April
Sunday was our last day and it was very windy and rainy. After our last, excellent, breakfast at the hotel we checked out and left our bags at the train-station before going to the National Museum of Denmark. Entrance is free and its the biggest museum in Scandinavia. The lower parts with stone-age, bronze and iron-age displays were interesting but really, we should have stopped there. Riikka liked the other parts more but I was getting tired and bored before we reach the top floor. Since its free you can go there on multiple days and that’s what I’d recommend, go and see one floor at the time or you’ll be overwhelmed (and cranky).
After the National Museum it was time to go back to Kastrup for our flight back home, we arrived early so I could meet up with my friend Joakim who has moved to Malmö and came over to meet us. Very nice to meet him! Security lines were minimal and there was no problem showing the PDF boarding cards either.
Flight and bus back to Turku was uneventful.
