Danny Kaye sang – Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen! (If you are under 60 years of age: google him!)
It is a wonderful city – it feels stately and storied, and simultaneously feels youthful and fresh. Our last blog, on Tivoli Gardens, talked about how there were rides for today’s teens and adults as well as the older rides, tried and true. The same goes for the city. But “new” isn’t always new! The most-photographed scene in the city is Nyhavn – New Port, or New Harbor – and it was dug 350 years ago by Swedish prisoners! Our city walking guide, Martin, said they kept the prisoners in an underground dungeon for 15 years before they let them out – only to dig the canal.
One thing to know if you are going to visit – budget for one of the most expensive cities in Europe. Denmark has placed a 25% “Value Added Tax” (VAT) on everything – groceries, restaurants, tickets, bakeries, hotels – making the resulting costs really high. It is a very common thing in Europe, but Sweden and Denmark are among the highest. They don’t add it to the bill the way they normally do sales tax in the US. It is more like the way we pay for gasoline in the US, where the taxes are included in the posted price, but they do indicate what portion of the bill the taxes were at the end. The word for it in Danish is abbreviated to MOMS. For the first couple of receipts we got, we wondered whose mom we were supporting. Oh, we’re helping to support all the Danish moms, dads, and kids.
Most burgers and sandwiches are $20-30 US, while most dinners start at $40 and rise steeply, depending on the restaurant and the extravagance. We looked at the menu for an American diner here, and breakfasts for one were $25-30, while dinners were over $50. So that we didn’t have to face that every day, sometimes we bought grocery store salads for dinner, which were very good and very fresh. Pizzas cost $20-25, but they do feed two people! And some places run lunch and dinner specials, which helps a bit. We do note that the value of the US dollar has declined against most currencies this year. It has declined about 10% against the Danish Krone in the last few months, so that has also made it a little more expensive.
Bicycles are everywhere, and crossing a bike path is fraught with danger, as they go pretty fast. On our walking tour, our guide said the bicycle culture is called Viking Biking, as it is so expensive to own a car here. He told us he saw the Minister of Justice arriving at work one morning – on a bicycle! And he has seen the King and Queen both biking in the city…with no security guards! Amazing.
We stayed in Old Town, and we feel it is worth it, even though hotels are quite expensive. Being able to walk everywhere within 15-30 minutes is a real plus. Taxis and Ubers are expensive, and being farther away from the city center would have meant time wasted traveling. There are castles, palaces, museums, great old buildings, parks, gardens, churches, and canals everywhere. Every cuisine imaginable is a few steps away – as well as famous Danish bakeries. In many ways, some of the places felt just like Amsterdam, as there were bikes crowding the sidewalk and many bridges crossing canals. Also, some of the areas were designed by Dutch architects. Our photos will give you a taste of what there is to see. The biggest bargain was Tivoli Gardens, as we mentioned in our last blog. At this time of year, nothing was very crowded. But the temperatures were uneven – one day, warm enough not to wear a jacket, while the next day needing both a jacket and sweater. But we have been told that winter will disappear for good in about a month, and summer will finally kick in. The locals all stubbornly eat outside, even when it is chilly, so summer will be all the more welcome when it comes.
One tip for travelers: we don’t know if everyone would enjoy it as much as we do, but as we are traveling around we like to watch movies that show the local sights. When we were in Bruges, we enjoyed watching the movie, In Bruges. The day after we were in Machu Picchu, we saw an old Charlton Heston movie, The Secret of the Incas, which was filmed on location there. While we were here, we watched a rubber monster flick made in Copenhagen in 1961 called Reptilicus. It was very schlocky and funny, but the best part was seeing Tivoli Gardens and the squares we had been walking around that day, and how they looked in 1961 – most hadn’t changed much! Try looking up a locally-set movie sometime as you travel, and stream it. It is very enjoyable.
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