Denmark

February 2013: Since Kuwait does not celebrate Christmas, our Winter Break happened to be in February. My sister and I wanted to meet up somewhere, so we figured Denmark and Sweden was kind of the midway point. So the three of us headed to chilly Scandinavia for two weeks. Our first stop was Copenhagen, which we all loved.

highlights

.Walkability . Viking Museum . Kronberg Castle . Carlsberg Museum . Stroget Street

lowlights

. Cold . Expensive

copenhagen

Copenhagen is a great city. Walkable, with bikes and bike lanes everywhere. Everything just works in this city. We absolutely loved it. We stayed in Ascot Apartments, which had a great setup and the location was perfect. It was just a short walking distance from Stroget Street, which has all of the shopping and pubs you need. It was also very close to Jens Olsen's World Clock, which is in City Hall, and is very cool. Trevor took a walk one day and found a cool cemetery with some famous names like Niels Bohr and others. Other places we visited were the Little Mermaid (nice walk along the water to find her), Rosenborg Castle (where royal jewels are kept), Amalienborg, Nyhavn (every picture you see of Copenhagen), and the ruins under Christiansborg Palace. This is also the city of Hans Christian Andersen, so if you are a fan of Fairytales, there is his Fairytale House you can visit. We did get out of the city a bit, so keep reading below for a description of the day trips we took.

roskilde

Roskilde is about a 30 minute train ride from Copenhagen. It is a cool little town that has a Viking Museum. We were pretty excited about this. The museum has reconstructed old Viking Ships, using some of the original pieces of wood that were found. In the warmer months you can go for a boat ride in a replica of the ships. They also have a dress-up station (which Trevor and I took full advantage of). Roskilde also has a Cathedral, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Sight, but of course we happened to be in Roskilde on the day that it was closed.

helsingor

Helsingor is about a 40 minute train ride from Copenhagen, and it is home to Kronberg Castle, also known as "Elsinore" in Shakespeare's Hamlet. It is a cool Renaissance castle that we wandered through. If you are into art, we also stopped at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. It was in a beautiful location, right on the water, and had some sculptures outside, and a well-laid out inside. 

food and drink

Denmark has every type of restaurant, so you will have no problem finding somewhere to eat. We tried the traditional Smorrebrod, which is an open sandwich. They were alright, although I'm not a huge fan of seafood, so it was a bit strong for me. And the beer? Carlsberg of course. We went to the Carlsberg Museum, which I really enjoyed. They hold a record for the largest beer bottle collection in the world. At the top we relaxed, watched some Carlsberg commercials on a big screen, and had a few beers.