Last Thursday I flew out of Stansted airport on Easyjet to spend a few days in Copenhagen. Jazza, Kano and Meeks were also coming along but not arriving until the Friday night.
Getting out to Stansted airport took over an hour from Victoria Station but once clear of the city it was quite a quick trip through the countryside. It's quite good over here travelling on e-tickets because you can actually get your boarding passes up to two months before you travel, so if you can pack lightly enough to get away with hand baggage then you can head straight for the departure gate.
Thankfully my flight to Copenhagen was on time and it was only about an hour and a half before we touched down. The weather in Copenhagen was a lot nicer than it had been in London and I was happy to see the blue skies. It wasn't that cold either which was a bonus!
I caught the train in from the airport to the city which only took about 10 minutes and I got hold of a map to help me find the hotel which i knew wasn't that far from the station. After one navigational error i tracked it down! It was a pretty tiny room but at least it was central!
There were a couple of recommended tourist trails on the map so I decided to take the 90 minute option as it was already after 6 and I had no idea what time it would get dark over here. It took me to some nice laid-back parts of Copenhagen where it was good to get a sense of how the locals go about their business. Hopefully I took a few ok photos! It also took me through quite a large red-light district which was quite funny as it seems out of keeping with the rest of the city! Knowing that Jazza and Kano were soon to arrive I had my doubts as to whether I'd seen the last of this area either!!
After a decent couple of hours pounding the pavement I headed to an Italian restaurant for dinner which was alright although the pizzas in Italy certainly rate a lot more highly than the ones here - the fact that the chef and his offsiders looked decidedly non-Italian may have had something to do with it!
After a reasonable night's sleep I started the next day with the complimentary buffet breakfast and then set about exploring the main attractions. The city is not that hard to get around, and it's a real bonus that it's so flat. You can hire bikes for free too (basically they work like a shopping trolley where you insert a coin which releases the bike from the lock and then you get the coin back when you return the bike). Thankfully people seem to return the bikes better than the upturned vandalised trolleys evident around the outskirts of the Eastlands Shopping Centre.
I was quite excited about getting to Copenhagen as I expected that the bakery products would be up there rivalling Belgium and Austria - particularly when Copenhagen must be the home of the Danish! How wrong was I? I couldn't lay a hand on a decent danish anywhere (i'm still talking about the food here, although that statement does apply across the board). They do love their filled bread roll offerings here though, although their fillings are about as imaginative as the ABS mission statement.
The main attractions I worked my way around were the Royal residences (it would've been un-Tasmanian not to put in an appearance), the little mermaid (a fairly underwhelming city emblem on the water's edge - although i was interested to hear that her head has been broken off twice over the years and the police once vowed that if the offenders were caught that they would be charged with murder!!), Nyhavn (a colourful port area filled with al fresco restaurants), the shopping precinct and the observatory (where I got a decent view of the city).
I then hopped on a canal tour which explored the city by water (most of which I'd seen on foot but it was nice to rest the legs nonetheless!). From here I hopped on a bike and wheeled around the city outskirts that I hadn't yet seen. The bikes don't have gears and the old-fashioned pedal brakes so I didn't break any speed records but it was good exercise nonetheless.
I grabbed some dinner then waited for the other guys to arrive from London. They were delayed by an hour or so and didn't get in until after 11. After a quick stop off at McDonalds (where Kano managed to order 3 burgers instead of burger number 3 - he polished them all off nonetheless, though jazza was circling like a crow in case he couldn't!!). We went and had a few beers at a couple of nearby establishments which was good fun, although at around $11 AUD per pint it wasn't the cheapest of nights! Thankfully my poor drinking prowess held me in reasonable stead here (as I'm sure Jarrod 'contiki' Hall will attest). Most of the people we met were from other parts of Europe - we had some good banter with some punters from Norway and the Netherlands. I couldn't believe how quickly the time went and next thing it was 3.30 so we called it a night.
The next day the other guys explored Copenhagen but since I'd already done that on Friday I decided to head across the border into Sweden to the city of Malmo. The journey there took about 45 minutes and it was well worth it - the place had a really good vibe to it and when the sun came out you could see the potential it would have in the summer! It seemed to be quite a small place and three hours was ample to tick off all the suggestions on the map. It certainly whet the appetite to see other parts of Sweden at some stage!
On return I grabbed an ice-cream (they do ice-cream a lot better than their danishes!) and kicked back down at Nyhavn in the afternoon sun. The city was teeming with people and all the canal boats that were touring around were absolutely chockers.
I met up with the other guys back at the hotel around 7 and we headed out to dinner to a Latin restaurant which was quite good although the service was exceptionally slow. From here we had a couple of beers - most of our time was spent at this bar in which this young guy was getting absolutely smashed and trying to dance with all the girls. It was very reminiscent of Jazza around the time he was tearing up the dancefloors at 21st birthday parties. No doubt he would've ended up feeling pretty sick and sorry on Sunday!
On Sunday morning Jazza and I were on a 10.45 flight out of Copenhagen so we took advantage of the breakfast buffet before catching the train back out to the airport. Once again our flight was on time which was good and we snared the exit row which was ideal. Customs at Stansted was extremely quick and before long we were on the buses bound for London. My trip back two hours - there seemed to be roadworks happening everywhere so it was very slow-going.
