Denmark and Sweden
I took a trip to Copenhagen in Denmark. I loved the city. I stayed in the middle, just five minutes from the train station. I’ve never seen so many bikes. Luckily it’s a very flat city, in stark contrast to Edinburgh which is built on seven hills. No surprise I visited the Museum of Denmark and also the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek to see the an amazing collection of sculpture and art. The museum has an astonishing array of artefacts and it is is quite overwhelming, especially when under time constraints. The Glyptotek was a must for me. I managed to take in a range of paintings I hadn’t seen before by artists including Van Gogh, Picasso, Degas, Gauguin, Toulouse Lautrec, Pissarro, Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Vuillard and Rousseau. A great afternoon and so worth the visit. Also note that included in the many sculptures on display is The Kiss by Auguste Rodin.
I also took the train across the bridge to Malmo in Sweden. It’s one of those trips you really don’t want to miss out on, as it’s so close. Just had to make sure I was carrying my passport, although there were no border checks on the day I travelled. You may have heard of Malmo as it’s been in the news last week as the Eurovision Song Contest was held there. I was lucky I visited earlier, so it wasn’t so busy.
I love food, so when I say the food was amazing, I’m not sure if that counts for anything. There’s nothing I won’t try and yes, the food was amazing. A top tip is to eat your main meal of the day just before four in the afternoon as many places shut for an hour and then open at five and the cost is considerably more.
I collect coins (I should blog about that one day) so it’s good to see Denmark having their own currency. The Euro is pretty boring. I get it’s convenient, but with the use of chip and pin these days that convenience is a moot point. I like different coins. In my excitement at visiting Sweden I didn’t get a chance to grab some local currency, but I did in Denmark including a couple of 50 Krone notes as well.
The weather is much like Scotland so that wasn’t a challenge. I did the usual tourist things such as going to visit the Fort and the Mermaid (which I’ve used as the image for this blog post. So pleased I managed to get a shot without a tourist in it). Going off the beaten track a bit, I went up to Assistens Cemetery to visit the grave of Hans Christian Anderson, the Danish fairy tale author. A very moving experience. I would describe the cemetery as very leafy, full of trees and low branches and quite confusing to navigate around despite the signage. I’m reminded of the time in Edinburgh when I returned to my office at work after having given a talk that morning and saying to a colleague, “I discovered this really cool cemetery.” He replied, “Coming from anyone else, that would sound really weird, but from you, it doesn’t!” I had decided to walk that morning to the venue and had passed a cemetery I hadn’t visited before. Unless I’m in a hurry I usually take different routes around the city, hence me discovering the cemetery. Anyway, back to Copenhagen, the Assistens Cemetery is in the neighbourhood of Norrebro which is quite a cool place in itself, full of pubs and eateries. Stopping off at a local bar on the way back, I got chatting to the bar staff and one of them had a friend studying at the University of Edinburgh.
A nice touch was my hotel offering me a 100 Krone for a drink at the bar for every day I chose not to have my room cleaned. A no brainer really! All in all Copenhagen is a really cool place, with good food and drink, plenty of culture and a decent transport system. Can’t ask for more than that!
The Fiction Factory 