The day I arrived in Copenhagen it was a Sunday morning at the end of August although the weather felt very autumnal. I had a few hours to kill on my own before my friend arrived. This was my very first visit to any Scandinavian country and it did not disappoint. I didn’t know what to expect, I mean I knew it wouldn’t be like Spain, Italy or even Paris but I was hoping that it would feel completely different to, say, London. And it did! It felt like somewhere I had never been before, the architecture and layout of the small city fascinated me. And the food… Copenhagen is big on street food, and I can honestly say some of the best street food in the world! I couldn’t get enough of their open top sandwiches that they call Smørrebrød.
Summer 2018 
3 DaysNyhavn is the area where the canal finishes, and is the small strip of bars with the coloured buildings that appears almost anywhere “Copenhagen” is mentioned.
Its beautiful, if not slightly full of tourists. It is a very touristy area, and therefore the prices can be expensive for food and drink, but don’t let that put you off visiting the area at least once.
All the canal tour boats “Netto Boats” leave from here, usually they are 1 hour guided tours, which I highly recommend doing if its your first visit as it gives you perspective on the size and scale of the city plus you learn some interesting facts and history about the place.
Copenhagen is really big on street food, and this was a small street food market located near our accommodation on the way to Nyhavn. I had a chicken burger, and it was one of the nicest I had ever tasted!
Strøget is the main shopping strip in Copenhagen (think the Champs Elysees and Regent Street, just a lot less busy and smaller). Walking around this area you realise just how clean this city is (one of the cleanest I've ever seen).
The Copenhagen City Hall is one of two places you can get a panoramic view of the city (the other being the Round Tower). However, there are only two times of the day you can go up to the top of the City Hall, 11am and 2pm and you can only buy tickets on the day, therefore you have to rock up there early to get your ticket for one of the two slots and then return at either 11 or 2. Due to time restrictions we didn't get tickets and we also knew that we were going to the round tower the next day. You can look around the rest of the town hall at any time providing its not in use for a function or wedding.
Whilst we were in Copenhagen we only visited one restaurant, the rest of the time we relied on street food markets as they were so nice. One of the countries specialities is something called Smørrebrød Brød, which is Danish Rye bread with toppings, and I could have eaten many of these over and over.
Netto boats are small open top boats that go around the canals usually with a tour guide. Most of the tours last around an hour and give you a great sense of perspective. We saw the little mermaid on the netto boat tour, which is some way out of the city centre. This is a famous tourist attraction, but to be honest we didn't get it! I'm glad we saw it from the boat and didn't make a special treck across the city for it.
Reffen Street Food, my favourite thing about Copenhagen. So this is a whole area dedicated to street food (and drink of course). If you want to walk from the city centre its about 20 minutes, or you can get on a boat. Go here on an empty stomach, and you might want to go at the end of the day when your sightseeing is over! No cash is taken here though, payment is totally via card only.
Rundetaarn is in English The Round Tower, located in the centre of the city, one of two places in the city to get a panoramic view (the other being the City Hall). I would certainly advise doing this over the city hall.
The walk up is a slope (no stairs). The round tower was built this way so that horses could climb to the top where there is a library of books.
The walk up was easy, its not steep and the view is pretty good. Even on a dull day you can see the bridge which crosses over into Sweden!
Rosenborg Castle is a renaissance castle that was originally built as a country summerhouse in 1606 and is an example of Christian IV's many architectural projects. There are guided tours if your interested, we didn’t. We just visited the outside and the adjacent gardens which were beautiful.
Kings Garden is the adjacent gardens to Rosenborg Castle, fairly large in size and I can imagine on a hot summers day somewhere you’d easily spend an hour to two sunbathing or having a picnic. Unfortunately it was a little dull on the day we visited, but a lovely area to escape the city.
Tivoli Gardens is an amusement park and gardens, opened in August 1843 which makes this the second oldest theme park in the world (the oldest also being in Denmark slightly north of Copenhagen).
It’s got a few thrill rides and a couple of small rollercoasters (so don’t go thinking anything the scale of Alton Towers, it isn't!) but the best thing about this park is going in the evening (dusk and night fall) to see the gardens all lit up. We didn’t go on any rides, as we just enjoyed the nice stroll around the park.
Copenhagen Zoo… it’s… well, a zoo! The highlight was seeing a little baby kangaroo peaking out of its mothers pouch. It’s a little out of the city centre but located right next to the Carlsberg Museum, so you can get the same hop on bus. This isn’t something I would usually have chosen to do, but for the whole day it absolutely hammered it down with rain, my friend wanted to visit the Carlsberg museum so it made sense to do this, as some of it was partially indoors.
Visit Carlsberg is the brewery/museum. If you haven’t been to a brewery before, then this one is certainly an interesting one to visit. It gives you a history of the 100+ years of Carlsberg and a look at some of the older branding along with beer making and transportation, plus a free pint of…. Carlsberg obviously!
