A London Surprise in April

The day before our holiday to France, we woke up on Sunday morning to see this…


Technically, we are over Winter and in the middle of Spring so you can imagine our surprise, and delight, with the white stuff.

The above view is from Geoff's bedroom window in Balham. The photo below is a snow-coated Balham house.

A Day Trip to Sweden (and back to Copenhagen)

A short consultation with Wiki Travel told us that when in Copenhagen, a 45-minute train ride away across a body of water called Oresund, was a sweet place called Malmo in Sweden.

We set out on a sunny day (at this point we’d now experienced all types of weather from snow to sunshine) and took a train across the double-storey Öresund Bridge, which rises up and out of the water between the two countries and stretches itself for 8km from water to Malmo. It’s more amazing to see a picture of the Bridge from the air, than actually be on it, but can you capture some exciting sights being on the bridge such as the biggest wind farm in the world.



We landed in Malmo prepared for some kind of Customs process where we could get one of those coveted stamps on our passport, but after wondering around for a few minutes we left the building to walk straight into the pretty streets of Malmo.


We found our way easily to the town centre where one can find Big Square.


And a Little Square.


We spent most of our time in the Little Square, as we visited the Form/Design Centre (similar to the Danish Design Centre).


And lunched at a cute café called Pronto over looking the Square.



Afterwards we walked off lunch at the park, Slottsparken. It was cold, so we walked briskly along the little river.


Then to the park’s café (where an old green house is where customers enjoy hot drinks and food), the park’s gardens (which were not yet in bloom seeing as it was not quite Spring), checked out the park's windmill, spied the tallest building in Malmo- luxury apartments called the Turning Torso.


And wondered into the entrance of the Malmöhus Castle, which we didn’t have time to visit.

Back in Little Square we chose a little pub for a drink while waiting for the next train. We met a couple of random people, a friendly American and a beefy Swede, who could have talked all night if it wasn’t for the train we had to catch back to Copenhagen.

As it was our last night in Copenhagen and still too cold to venture out to find a restaurant, we stayed in the hotel and enjoyed the glass-encased restaurant, The Harbour, on the water.


Our last morning was spent walking around the city (shops still closed for Easter), and found another great café for brunch called Mojo.


While the standard of living in Copenhagen is very high (their tax is one of the highest in the world), the life expectancy numbers don't seem to correlate... We believe it's got to be something to do with these big, big brunches!

Cold, Cold Copenhagen

For the Easter long weekend, we set off out of London to the fabulous city of Copenhagen. Getting from London to Stansted Airport takes double the time than the 1 hour 45 minute flight to Copenhagen itself, but after a late cab, Tubes, trains and another cab later we arrived at the Copenhagen Island Hotel, our accommodation for the next 4 nights.



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.



It’s a small fee to enter to see the exhibitions. The main exhibition celebrates Danish design, especially Denmark’s renowned architects, furniture and jewellery designers. We explored the other exhibitions and browsed the shop before leaving.

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.



One the way back we checked out the Royal Library, named the Black Diamond, for its shimmering black glass façade on the edge of one of Copenhagen’s canals. It was closed for the day, so we walked around admiring the architecture.



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 (which is also now a Disney movie). We had been warned that the mermaid is as she was named- little. But she was a pretty sculpture, seated on a rock in the water, with an unfortunate backdrop of shipping yards.



It was absolutely freezing and we cold feel the temperatures drop even lower so we decided to hunt for a café to grab a coffee. On our walk out of Kastellet, we found the cutest café ever, Kafferiet.



Kafferiet does take away coffees in pretty pink cups, stocks shelves of adorable lollies, has bowls of tiny stickers one can take, saying things like ‘Behind every successful person… is a substantial amount of coffee’, and of course lovely coffee.



When we left Kafferiet, we had only been walking for about 300m when snow started to fall! And a lot of it.



We ducked into the first Museum we came across, the Kunst Industri Museet, or the Danish Museum of Art and Design.



Again, a huge museum, with lots of artefacts to see, tracing the decades of design. Furniture design featured highly, especially the Arne Jacobsen classics.



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.



In the centre of the city one can find the most popular row of flagships stores. The first is jewellery manufacturer, Georg Jensen’s 3-storey flagship store, inclusive of a small museum in the basement. A must, to pay respect to the infamous jewellery house and see on display its iconic silver jewellery.



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 finished up our day out at K Bar, as recommended by our trusty Wallpaper City Guide.



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.



Back at the hotel, we settled in for the evening. The snow had melted and the sky above Copenhagen city looked like it was finally clearing.