A Journey to Denmark

As part of my trip in Scandinavia, I decided to spend time in Denmark in addition to Sweden (Norway unfortunately was not part of this trip due to a lack of time). Initially, I thought of doing a short one day visit by taking the first flight into Copenhagen from Stockholm, spending the day checking as much as I could in Copenhagen, and then heading back to Stockholm on the last flight out. In my mind, that seemed like a decent idea.

I had actually done something very similar in 2012 when I took the first flight from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia to Brunei and the last flight out. That allowed me to check out Brunei for a day.

However, the more I thought of the one-day plan, the less enthused I became about it. On one hand, there were significantly more items that I wanted to see in Denmark, and it would take more than a full day to do that, especially since three of the sites were outside of Copenhagen. In addition, taking the first flight in, exploring the entire day, and taking the last flight out would have been exhausting, and I would not have the opportunity to really walk around at a leisurely pace. It would have been very rushed, and I would need to see sites for a bit then head off to the next place. Ultimately, I decided to spend 3 days in Denmark (technically two and a half days). While this was much better, in retrospect, I could have easily spent a couple more days in Denmark because of all the things to see and explore.

Prior to arrival in Denmark, I had purchased a Copenhagen Card for $125 that would allow me free use of all public transportation in Copenhagen and the metropolitan area, which in my opinion, includes a huge area that easily covers most day trips out of the city. After calculating everything, the Copenhagen Card definitely saved me money, but like pretty much all tourist cards, the way to save the money is to use it as much as possible.

Church of Our Savior Stairs — Church of Our Savior stairs

The flight to Denmark on SAS was quick and easy. Since I was only going to be gone for three days, I did not bother bringing my carry-on bag and only brought absolute essentials in my backpack. Upon arrival in Copenhagen, I activated the Copenhagen Card and took the train from the airport to the central station. From the central station, I walked to the hotel, which on the map did not seem so far, but it was a bit different walking. In truth, it is actually not too far, but because the train tracks from the station run parallel to the hotel, I had to go around, and that took time. Eventually, I got to the hotel, but because it was so early, it was not possible to check in, so I followed my plan and started exploring what Copenhagen had to offer.

Since Copenhagen has an extremely easy metro system to use, it was super easy to explore the sites, and some of my favorites were the castles within the city and the Church of Our Savior, which was completed in the eighteenth century . The main attraction of this church is the spiraling tower that gives an amazing view of Copenhagen. I have had the opportunity to climb many church towers over the years, and I, admittedly, think my age is starting to show a little bit because I was not able to go up as quickly as I would have been able to. However, the view from the top was amazing although somewhat unnerving since the only thing preventing someone from going over the side is a railing. In addition, as one progresses up the stairs, the way becomes narrower until it is no longer possible to go further, so there is not much room to maneuver around, and I was worried that my selfie-stick with phone attached would accidentally drop, but luckily that did not happen.

Another truly beautiful area of Copenhagen was the highly-photogenic area of Nyhaven. This area is probably the most photographed part of Copenhagen because of its colored buildings along the canal.

After a full day of exploring museums and castles (I will talk more about the castles in another blog entry), I eventually made my way back to the hotel for check-in. The hotel itself was a budget hotel, so it was not amazing, but it was very clean, quiet, and well-maintained for what it cost, so I was quite surprised by that. In addition, the hotel had a unique breakfast/cafeteria system that required guests to reserve a breakfast time since the hotel is quite large with many guests.

Overall, the trip to Denmark was highly successful, but there was one significant issue, and that happened on the day of my departure. I had originally purchased my departure flight back to Sweden for 7:15, but I neglected to realize that the time meant 7:15 in the morning and not evening. I only became aware of this at about 5:30am while planning activities for my last day when I got a notification about the departure time. I initially found this odd since I had believed the flight was still hours away, but it soon became apparent to me what I had done.

As a result of my blunder, I had to purchase a new flight for 17:05. This was actually the second time this has happened. The first time this happened was in 2012 when I was going to take a bus from Wroclaw, Poland to Prague, Czech Republic. I misread the time and thought 1:00 was in the afternoon and not in the morning. At that time, I did not realize that mistake until it was too late. If anything, I think this whole episode just showed that even though I'm fairly well-traveled and have live my day-to-day life by the 24 hour clock for over a decade, I still make travel mistakes.

Despite the flight blunder, Denmark definitely impressed me, and I would not be opposed to putting Denmark somewhere in my “Top 10 Country List.” I would love to return sometime in the future and check out sites and places I could not get to this time.

Please enjoy the gallery of some other photos of Copenhagen. All photos were taken using an iPhone 13 Pro Max.