The hotel and our room was a first taste of the design-orientated city of Copenhagen. As you can see below, the Danes do love their furniture design and interior details.
On Good Friday we woke up excited to explore what one designer described to me as his "most favourite city in the world." We think the only downside to Copenhagen it that it is an incredibly expensive city, even more so than London. The other thing that surprised us was how cold Copenhagen was in what is considered the first month of Spring. But then again, there seemed to be a cold snap across Europe over that Easter weekend because back in the UK, snow was falling.
We found a lovely place called Cafe Square for breakfast on Friday. The menus only read in Danish, so we randomly ordered some dishes only to find huge square brunches appeared before us, kind of like an antipasto plates of breakfast goodies! We dug in happily after our cold walk over and let the hot coffee warm and awaken our insides.
After rolling out of Café Square, we walked through the city to find that most shops were closed for the day, so we visited the Danish Design Centre.
The Danish Design Centre is the Design Council of Denmark and houses a shop, café, conference facilities and exhibition spaces.
The next place we came across was just around the corner, and it was the massive National Museet. The museum was the former residence of the Royal family and too many rooms to count, full of historical artefacts from Denmark and all over the world. There was also a children’s museum of toys. The museum has free admission, and when you leave, you'll no doubt feel completely overwhelmed by information!
The afternoon was wearing on so we decided to start making our way back to the hotel as it was a good 15 minute walk from the city centre.
As it was so cold, we didn't venture out for dinner, and stayed in at the enveloping warmth of our hotel room to watch movies, read and relax.
Saturday saw the shops open for trading, but we did some sightseeing before getting retail therapy. We took a bus to the northern part of the city, to a star-shaped island surrounded by canals called Kastellet. We still haven’t quite figured out what Kastellet is and how the church , army barracks, bronze sculptures and an isolated gourmet deli with a huge wine cellar, all fit together.
One of Copenhagen’s most famous tourist attractions is The Little Mermaid. A bronze sculpture inspired by the book, The Little Mermaid, by Hans Christian Andersen
When we left Kafferiet, we had only been walking for about 300m when snow started to fall! And a lot of it.
The snow was still falling but we continued walking along the long avenues. Along the way we passed many art galleries and furniture shops, where windows displayed the design icons and classics we had just seen in the Museum only these were for purchase. It was quite amazing really, to have the opportunity and accessibility to museum pieces, for one's own home.
We made our way back into Copenhagen city centre, passing a pretty special looking church called, Frederiks Kirke.
By the time we reached the city centre we were starving, partly from the walk and mostly from the cold. We found our way to a very popular site, Nybrogade, a canal flanked by colourful pubs and lined with fishing boats.
There were so many choices of pubs, but we settled on one whose intimate interior paid homage to the fishing and boating history of the area. It ended up being a great choice, especially for fish and chips, because even now when we look at the photo, our mouths water.
The food hit the spot and we felt revived and ventured out to the shops.
Next door is, Royal Copenhagen, the world-famous brand of hand-painted porcelain and china, all of which is beautifully presented and almost always buzzing with people.
Finally, the homeware institution, Illums Bolighus, where you can find the best homeware and furniture design sourced from Denmark and Europe.
While we didn't take home any silver or homewares, we did pick up some things from the department store, Magasin, and shoes from the Dutch brand Ecco.
We have been starting to use the Wallpaper City Guides on all our trips, and find their recommendations for architecture, bars, eateries, attractions, hotels etc. of both quality and great interest. The maps inside are a really helpful introductions before we arrive, and so are the details such how much a taxi from the airport to the city might cost. One of the neatest things about these Guides are that they are slim and A5 in size, meaning they are light and easy to carry around.
The write up in the Guide of K Bar was that they were masters of martinis and cocktails. We tried a Tiramisu cocktail of velvety liquid topped with biscuit crumbs, along with some bar snacks.
