Copenhagen Bloggin’

Our next stop on our European tour found us in Denmark. Copenhagen, to be exact. We only had a few days there before leaving so we tried our best to see as much as we could. Luckily our place had a couple of bikes that we were able to use. We definitely got into biking shape!

Day 1 had us venture into the city centre to see all the main attractions.

I was quite impressed with the architecture. It was refreshing to see so many unique designs that at times are bold, but it made the city quite intriguing.

We started to venture outward in search of the Little Mermaid statue which was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the same name.

Afterwards we decided to explore a few of the more eclectic neighbourhoods that lay on the outskirts of the city centre. The first of these was Reffshaleøen. Once a shipyard, this area of town has become a thriving food market by converting old shipping containers into food stalls. I was reminded of Portland as this area seemed trendy, and a little bit weird.

Our next outlying neighbourhood we visited was Christiania. It was established by squatters in the 1970’s and is now a commune for free folk to live a more bohemian lifestyle. As DawnO and I rode in we were greeted by a nude beach which will forever be burned into our brains. After that we took in the sights, sounds, and smells of Christiania. I kept thinking, this was exactly what camping would turn into if it got frighteningly out of hand. I started to feel like the rich bad guy in a cheesy 80’s ski bum movie because I wanted to see the place shut down. My only comfort was to imagine pressure washing everything, including myself. We were warned not to take many pictures because there is an area called “Pusher Street” where they sell a variety of illegal substances. The police have agreed to look the other way, but they also send in plain clothes officers to keep an eye on things. This was the only picture we took before we entered:

Above was a no pictures sign. Whoops. Anyway, it was an interesting place, to say the least, and it actually was quite harmless. I just felt grimy the entire time, which may just be a personality tick. Regardless, we carried on.

This morning we rode to another town which was about 10 km from where we are staying. It is called ‘Dragør’ which looks like it should be easy to pronounce, but according to our AirBnB host, sounds more like something Arnold Schwarzenegger would yelp if he were trying to impersonate Chewbacca.

It is a lovely seaside town that was absolutely charming.