Copenhagen, Denmark (and Malmö, Sweden)

What a difference a day makes! Gone are the spectacular mountains, lava flows, geysers, waterfalls, and black-sand beaches of Iceland. Our 10-day excursion to this spectacular country being over, we have been catapulted into a completely new reality – the serene, majestic city of Copenhagen.

Nyhavn

Although we left our fitbit at home, we can surmise to have walked at least 20,000 steps on this day, but possibly much more. And it was all well worth it.

The first thing that struck us about Copenhagen is how much this large city, and capital of the country, moves quite leisurely and hurry-less. Most people commute on bicycles. Here is a little story that easily sums it up. After exiting the “Round Tower”, from where you could savor great views of the city, we entered a short, very narrow cobblestone street. In front of us were a group of three young men of apparent Middle Eastern origin, and in front of them, a very elegant woman flanked by two men in dark suits, all walking leisurely, chatting. One of the young men called out to the lady and asked if she wouldn’t mind taking a picture with them, and she agreed to the request. Being “naturally curious”, I then said to the young man “Excuse me, who was that woman?”, to which he replied, nonchalantly, “She is the Prime Minister of Denmark”!!

We looked her up, and surely as the sun rising in the morning, there was her picture, shown below, as well as others of her meeting with the likes of Donald Trump, the president of Ukraine, and the Prime Minister of India, among others. She is the youngest prime minister in the world. Her name is Mette Frederiksen, and she was simply strolling through the streets of her capital city, with little fanfare.

As I already said, the city is magnificent. It was also a very beautiful day to take it all in; its churches, its canals, its eateries, its views. We only drove by Tivoli Gardens, and we chose to skip the Little Mermaid statue, which is out of the way and apparently a disappointment to most, but otherwise we made the most of it.

The city sits on the Baltic Sea, across from Sweden and the city of Malmö, from which it is separated by a very long bridge and an underwater tunnel. Being this close, we thought “Why not go there for dinner?”. And that is what we did. We enjoyed the meal at a delightful Indian restaurant on one of the city’s picturesque squares, strolled around some more, and were shocked when we found a $120 ticket on our windshield for parking the car facing the wrong side of the street.

Malmö, Sweden

The ticket, the meal, and the round trip bridge tolls (hefty), made it quite an expensive dinner outing, but hey, you only live once, and my life surely cannot have too much time left. All in all, a very fine first day in Denmark (and Sweden).