Denmark 2016: Copenhagen (Part III)

Another day, another blog post (we'll see how long this lasts). In the meantime, we have one last day of Copenhagen excursions and photos to share with you, if you're still looking. This day became a bit of a "neighborhood tour," as we covered a lot of ground and saw the very different vibes that exist in different parts of the city. Like I said, our home base was the fantastic Nørrebro neighborhood, which was apparently somewhat unsafe until relatively recently. These days, it's multicultural, still relatively affordable, and pretty vibrant. It's apparently also becoming quite hip, so I'm guessing it'll be too expensive to stay there the next time we go to Copenhagen. Oh well... Anyway, we started our exploration out by traveling to the decidedly hip Vesterbrø neighborhood. It felt a bit like we had biked from our apartment directly to Brooklyn, but there was a highly recommended breakfast spot to try ("Granola")-and it was awesome!

We got there just as it opened, and within just a few minutes the place was packed with people, including the guy behind us who was exceptionally happy with his breakfast. As good as the food was, the highlight of our meal was watching him enjoy his!


After breakfast, we had just a little time left on our Copenhagen Card, so we headed over to "Our Savior's Church" to climb and catch a view. Each tower in Copenhagen seems to have a quirk (mine would provide jazz music and a complimentary beer with admission). While this one doesn't have a spiral path for horses, it does have a spiral staircase that ascends the outside of the tower. Even better, the higher you go, the narrower the steps are-and the lower the handrail gets. My tower would also differ in this regard.

Anyway, the whole thing was pretty terrifying on my first visit to Copenhagen (when it was very windy). On this trip, though, the weather was beautiful, and it wasn't even a little bit scary. Instead, we were treated to an awesome view of Copenhagen and across the water to Sweden.




The church is located in the beautiful Christianshavn neighborhood, which is where I would live if (1) I were a multimillionaire and (2) could buy property in Denmark. Charlotte is our only hope for acquiring Danish citizenship-and we're still looking for an angel investor to underwrite our apartment. In the meantime, we had a great time lounging along the canals watching the boats sail by.





Christianshavn is also home to one end of a very elaborate, and very complex 3-way drawbridge that recently opened exclusively for bikes and pedestrians. It was apparently very expensive, has a lot of mechanical problems, and gets very slippery when wet, but it's also very popular-and convenient (we used it multiple times ourselves).


Not far at all from Christianshavn is the very different Freetown Christiania that I alluded to in yesterday's post. Basically, some hippies commandeered an old military barracks several decades ago, proclaimed it to be sovereign soil, and have been engaged in a tug-of-war battle with "The Man" ever since. From what I've been reading, its existence grows more tenuous each year, especially since it's sitting on some prime waterfront real estate. For now, the hippies are holding out. Christiania apparently has some good vegetarian cafes and such (I say "apparently" because things aren't exactly clearly marked inside its walls; on our 2009 visit we entered what we thought was our destination cafe, but couldn't tell if we had found the cafe, a commune, or a dance party). Anyway, Christiania is best known for two things. First: bikes. Christiania makes the eponymous "Christiania Bike," which is a very nice and pricey cargo bike sold globally.


Second: open sales of a certain herbal product. You're forbidden to take photos of the actual "Pusher Street" market, but it's nothing you can't imagine (with the exception of vending machines for hash-where would you even acquire one?).


All in all, Christiania felt much more unsettled and kind of weird on this visit to Copenhagen. I'm curious what will become of it, but in the meantime, we had more exciting things to explore, so we didn't stay long. Next, we tried to bike to a beach park, but the weather went south on us, so we instead biked over to the Opera House to catch a view of the harbor.


Afterwards, we headed back to Nørrebro to return our rented bikes before the shop closed. Then, we set out on a substantial walk through Copenhagen that ended right back down at the harbor again. On our way, though, we passed through the City Center and its extensive shopping district.



After again passing through Nyhavn and crossing the other arm of the crazy 3-way pedestrian bridge, we found ourselves at a huge warehouse on the harbor, right near the opera house. In a previous life, this warehouse, Papirøen ("paper island"), served as home to a newspaper printing press, hence the name.




These days, Papirøen is where Copenhagen stores its surplus hipsters. Just kidding-they find their own way there, as the building is now home to "Copenhagen Street Food." The warehouse is chock-full of food vendors representing a huge diversity of cultures and cuisines, and I'd definitely been intrigued as I read about it in Laramie before our trip. It was awesome, and best of all were the lounge chairs that are free for you to use while enjoying your meal and taking in the harbor views!







On our 2.5 mi. or so walk back home, we were treated to some interesting sights, including: (1) a glimpse of Rene Redzepi (in white t-shirt), head chef of Noma, the "best" restaurant in the world); (2) a canal boat as it crashed into a bridge; and (3) some of the walking paths associated with the University of Copenhagen's botanical gardens.






All in all, we went to bed feeling like there is a lot left to see in Copenhagen, but that we definitely did our best to cover some ground on this visit!