Date:7/13/2024-7/24/2024
Destination: Sweden, Denmark
Goal: Coasters and Culture in Sweden and Denmark
Distance: 4286 Miles
Means of Travel: Flight, Train, Ferry, Bus
Potential Credits: 34
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| Image Description: The Copenhagen neighborhood of Nyhavn. Several colorful buildings sit at the edge of a harbor, with multiple boats moored in the water across the street from the houses. One boat is bright red. |
Early to bed, early to rise. Today was the second fully travel day abroad, as I would be spending the day riding the rails all the way to Danmark's capital Copenhagen, where my flight was to leave in two days. I awoke to the sound of Barry knocking on my glass door and the pitter-patter of rain, and he handed me a picnic basket like yesterday's while holding an umbrella.
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| Image Description: Jarrett stands in the rain with a blue umbrella, wearing a blue and yellow Kentucky Kingdom shirt and slate gray button-down shirt with long sleeves. |
I had a 9:30 bus from here to Brønderslev, a train to Aalborg Station, and then a train to Aarhus and then to Copenhagen. It was rainy as hell so I needed an umbrella, and my bag of souvenirs was getting wet.
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| Image Description: The rainy main street of a small Danish hamlet. The street is glossy with rainwater, several buildings have medium sloped orange tiled roofs and are made of brick or white/yellow stucco. |
YESSSSS there's dark, dreary, existential crisis Europe we love! None of this sunshine and rainbows bullshit! Nice as the nice weather had been most of the trip, it was nice to see a more atmospheric Danmark than I had up to now.
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| Image Description: On a blue stool sits a small black toiletry bag with a silver rectangular logo reading "embark." |
I'm on the bus to Brønderslev Station, I get there, and I see Rea, Barry's wife standing there with a rain poncho. What's she doing here? She approaches me and hands me the toiletry bag I forgot at the bed and breakfast. God bless this couple!
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| Image Description: The plaza outside of Aalborg Station, with a bus stop surrounded by tall, brick buildings with various towers at their corners. It is a rainy day and the street is wet and slick. |
This train took us to the next stop before Aalborg station, there was construction on a bridge so they needed to bus us the rest of the way there, and unlike France, they actually handled that well. And I got soaked at the train station in the pouring rain, and had to carry my luggage up stairs because their elevator wasn't working, so that was aggravating. Then I get there, drop a beer I was getting in the 7-Eleven and make a huge mess, got yelled at for it in Danish, and in the chaos of all that, totally forgot to get a snack to take on the train. Oh well, there's a bistro car on these things!
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| Image Description: A hand holds a white ticket from Aalborg to København, trimmed with a holograph at the bottom. |
I don't do the Danish language. I was able to pick up a fair amount of Swedish from Duolingo, I tried their Danish program too, but I was progressing way slower and the pronunciation with that language is really weird. So getting to the train station and figuring out where to go, I didn't even realize København was referring to Copenhagen until the dude I was talking to pointed something out.
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| Image Description: A hillside Danish town, with houses on a green, grassy slope. |
My travel app had me making a connection at Aarhus, but when I saw the train schedule, this line went right to København, I took the refund and paid the extra $20 to just get right to the Capital Region. This would cut about half an hour off of my journey and just keep me on the same train to chillax.
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| Image Description: Across the railroad tracks of a train station, there's a brick tower with a blue wooden turret at the top. |
This was the train ride from hell. No food car, no electrical outlets. I had to conserve my phone and laptop battery, and go totally hungry while smelling everyone else's delicious smørrebrød and shit they had packed.
Honestly? When we got to Göteborg, part of me didn't want to leave yet. I was enjoying kicking back, watching the scenery, writing my novel with a free coffee or seven. This was a whole different animal. Asking another passenger if I was on the right train, I was told you need to buy a seat in addition to a ticket with DSB (Danmark's rail company, you'll learn to love them like I did), and their app doesn't work with an American phone number, and the English version of the website sucks. Fortunately this very nice man helped me buy my seat, and it was in the corner of this railcar with a mom and her two kids.
I was initially dreading four hours with kids, but these two (boy about twelve and a girl about eight) were super well-behaved, I sat next to their mother and she helped me understand the Danish announcements, they're a wonderful family. Talking to the mom about how much harder Danish was than Swedish, the little girl pipes up in English, "yes, Mommy, Danish is one of the hardest languages to learn," so that was funny. However, the couple across the aisle from us had a four year old that screamed nonstop for two hours, I wanted to open the window and yeet the babby out the damn train.
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| Image Description: A silver railcar with a blue stripe on the windows is stopped on the tracks. The door has a logo in the shape of a red hexagon that says "DSB" on it in white letters. |
Have you ever noticed that DSB's ugly logo, a red polygon with white letters on it, looks like a stop sign? This is why, they are a fitting transportation company to have a logo resembling a symbol of not going anywhere!
Just on the other side of the tunnel to København, we get an announcement, and the woman I was riding with seems agitated at the Danish so I knew it wouldn't be good. Then they repeat, in English, that due to planned construction that they knew about, we had hit a delay until the tracks were clear for us to cross. We were already about half an hour behind schedule, and they held us here for about 35 minutes. This totally killed the time advantage I'd picked up by foregoing the connection in Aarhus (now I was wishing I had done it simply to get some food), and put us a solid hour behind schedule. I already was limited on my time to explore the city, and this ate up another hour of that.
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| Image Description: A grassy coastal bog has several leafless trees, all with several grassy bird nests in their branches. Several large birds roost on the bare limbs of the trees. |
This was kind of cool, all these birds had tons of nests in these boggy coastal trees near the tunnel. I was told they were ospreys.
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| Image Description: An LED screen for a train reads Middølfart |
Lol Midølfart
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| Image Description: In the ceiling of a railcar, a European-to-American power adapter is plugged in with an electrical plug and a USB cable. |
About twenty minutes to København, I can do this! I got a good stretch...and something caught my eye.
Are you fucking kidding me! After barely using my electronics the whole five hours on the train, twenty minutes to go I see there was an outlet the whole time and it was right overhead. The lady's like, "yeah, I thought you saw it!" so we had a laugh, I plugged my stuff, and actually threw on some tunes and enjoyed the final stretch into Copenhagen...even though more than once this fell out of the ceiling and bonked me on the head to the entertainment of the two kids at our table!
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| Image Description: A dumpy building on the side of the train tracks has black spray painted graffiti reading "DEMOCRACY IS NOW A COMMODITY." Messy construction barriers mark the property line from the rails. |
I need to get better at this public transport thing, I was trying to go to Copenhagen but ended up on the wrong train and went to Detroit on accident. Seeing this on a train, considering the election back at home, was straight out of some Hunger Games shit.
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| Image Description: A train station with brick floors, high sloped ceilings supported by iron arches, lit with large skylights and three tall rounded windows. A food stand with a green sign off to the left has an ad showing a chicken sandwich reading "KYLLING FOCACCIA." Travelers mill about, wearing jackets and carrying luggage. |
Here we are! After all that time, I finally got off that train at København Central Station, go up the stairs, and see the coolest train station on the whole trip. This place is massive, there's so much to get here, and the architecture is beautiful. I would go on to learn that this place is more than a train station, so much of the city's public transport all connects back here. It really is the beating heart of the city.
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| Image Description: A rainy city street. Across can be seen a simple gate reading "TIVOLI" flying four Danish flags, next to a Matterhorn prop. Behind the gate can be seen a tall tower covered in scaffolding. |
You step outside and the first thing you see is Danmark's beloved Tivoli, which was on the agenda for tomorrow. Ground is wet, clearly the entire small country had been rained on good all day, but it had stopped and people were out heading to the park and riding Reutschebanan and catching busses. Asking around, I was told it was better to just walk to my hotel despite the bus pass I had purchased.
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| Image Description: Under a concrete walkway supported by cement columns and metal X-shaped braces covered in blue string lights, a glass lobby with the word "CABINN" in white is at the back. |
Cabinn Copenhagen would be my final accommodation here in Danmark. I'd seen this chain's Odense location from the train on the way through, checking in it was so nice! You can buy your breakfast in advance at the counter and they have a little convenience store in the lobby including beer and wine. This chain is akin to America's Microtel chain but is built in Denmark's major cities, allowing you to stay a stone's throw from downtown for cheap. So I had a tiny room but it was private, comfy, and clean.
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| Image Description: A riverfront with a boat dock in the water, with several Danish-styled buildings behind it. |
Alright, I was starving by now, so I decided to head on out and try to explore my way to food!
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| Image Description: An ornate brick building with the faces of two pointed rooftops facing the camera. At the corner is an octagonal tower with a Scandinavian dome at the top. |
København feels like Paris's layout with Stockholm's architecture. Lots of river, lots of bridges, and a blend of modern and traditional with the architecture. However, I also noticed it was way more touristy than I was expecting. Tour busses, tour boats, and most of the restaurants I was finding online were touristy steakhouses and pizza places and not good, Danish food like I wanted to experience in København. Like, I want to come here and eat smørrebrød, not a ribeye with fries.
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| Image Description: A black sign on the water, written completely in Danish, has a title reading "FAGLÆRT." |
It looks bad. Like, really bad. But it's totally innocent. But is a few characters shy of saying something horrendously offensive. That word means a skilled worker. You might have a faglært at your hair salon, a faglært in a musical theater cast, or even a faglært among a construction crew!
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| Image Description: A canal flanked on either side by brick buildings with sloped orange roofs. Several large boats are moored on the left side of the canal, with smaller ones off to the right. A wide tour boat travels down the watery channel. |
Kept exploring and found one of Denmark's signature canals. Not the canal (though we're going there) and there wasn't much operating here business-wise, but it was pretty!
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| Image Description: A wide building of brick with square white windows and a tall, metal mansard roof. A large dark copper spire rises into the sky, with gold accents and a bright green tarnished crown capping it off. |
Christianborg Palace! One of the most iconic sights in Copenhagen, this building is the seat of the Danish government and seeing it can take an entire day. And best of all? It's basically a giant brick obstacle in your Copenhagen adventure, forcing you to explore your way around it and see what you find.
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| Image Description: Jarrett stands on a bridge against some water, with Christianborg Palace in the background. |
It's big and blocky but has a random spire just kind of stuck out of it.
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| Image Description: A row of houses, with a large brick and green copper church steeple rising behind it. On the left is a copper statue of a man riding a horse. |
When I explore a European town or city, I just kind of walk it with the goal to do one or two main things, and anything else I run into is just kind of added to the experience. It's a light, simple itinerary that allows me to ADHD my way around town. If I want to go run down that cool street, I can. I want to dilly dally and keep shooting this thing til it looks perfect, I can do that! I don't pad my itinerary and go make it happen, I make a point of the essentials and just let the city take me where it wants to.
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| Image Description: An ornate brick church sanctuary with a fountain out front sits behind a garden with red and white flowers. A grove of trees with chairs and benches sits to the left. |
Walking down a street I see an in to this. No biggie, just something I stumbled upon. This is why Europe is awesome, especially if you do photography.
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| Image Description: A cozy, dimly lit restaurant with small tables. At a central table is a large vase of red flowers and a large bowl containing wine bottles. |
20:00 was creeping up on us, and that's when most of the restaurants closed. Fortunately for me, I walk down this narrow European street and see some string lights and tables around a corner. As long as it wasn't expensive this was the place. So I get inside, ask for a menu, and see quiche and croque-monsieur. "French?" I asked. "Not Danish?" "Oh no," the girl replied, "we're a French cafe. Les Voyageurs!" Guess I'm getting my smørrebrød tomorrow, this is totally my thing!
And then my clumsy ass ruined the elegant ambiance of the fine French bistro by tripping over a chair and knocking it down. I totally looked like American Borat in another country.
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| Image Description: On a small, circular green tabletop rimmed with brass are a small plate of pitted olives, a plate of pits, and a white plate containing a French bread sandwich topped with a fried egg and chives. A candle, silverware, glass of water, and a glass of white wine also sit on the table. |
Got some olives as an app and a croque-madame, which is a traditional ham, cheese, and bechamel croque-monsieur, but topped with an egg. And a glass of white wine because of course. This hit the spot! I felt way better after finally eating for the first time since Vester Hjermitslev. In true French fashion, this sandwich wasn't particularly exotic ingredient-wise. You could honestly go to Walmart right now and get what you needed for it. However, the appeal to French cooking comes from knowing how to prepare everything just right with all the little tips and tricks they have, and Les Voyageurs brought that to the table literally. The bread on this sandwich was perfectly toasted, nice and crispy, and the cheese was so gooey and stringy.
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| Image Description: Across a canal parked with boats sit several colorful apartments and businesses. A vessel in the foreground lets up masts, booms, and rigging ropes. |
Finishing up, I hoofed it to my main point of making it out here tonight: København's signature Nyhavn. This is, by far, the most famous Copenhagen icon and if you've ever seen this city on the Travel Channel or something, chances are you saw travel porn of Nyhavn. South Park even depicted it in 2016 when they roasted the fuck out of this country for like ten episodes.
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| Image Description: Jarrett stands against a watery canal with colorful moored boats and colorful homes at the water's edge. |
This was the main thing I wanted to do in this city. Knowing what timing I had and what I had to work with, I just wanted to do the whole walking around thing and ensure I got to see this.
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| Image Description: A planter made of black wooden slats holds green plants at the edge of an awning for a dining area. On the wall-like planter, the word "Nyhavn" and a heart are painted in gold. |
Nyhavn, pronounced "neuhahn," not "nye-haven" like they say in Kentucky, not "knee-hahn" like I was saying. Neuhahn. Means "new harbor" in Danish.
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| Image Description: A canal neighborhood, with two corner houses each with a tower marking a street coming up to the watery channel. In the foreground, the prow of a beautiful wooden sailboat extends a prow with net-like rigging. |
And while this timeless little neighborhood might seem far from new by 2024 standards, it sure as hell is beautiful!
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| Image Description: A row of bicycles sits at the edge of a canal, with colorful buildings along the street across the water. |
By now, I was starting to notice why I was seeing random keychains with bikes in the souvenir shops. Danmark is the land of the bicycle. I love bikes. Three years of my employment history was spent assembling bicycles for Walmart, and in college I did both a triathlon and the 30-mile Vandalia Freedom Tour bike ride. Cycling even helped me lose weight for this trip! København is full of them, it's safe enough people just kind of leave them in the designated area, the trains here even have entire rail cars of no seats for you to put your bike.
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| Image Description: The edge of a harbor, with several bikes parked. A beautiful wooden boat in the water has a plaque reading "WOTAN KØGE DANMARK." Beautiful brick and white European buildings sit across the canal, a bridge crosses the water. |
However, one issue I had with København's otherwise beautiful bike culture: nobody wears a helmet. I wanted to bike here in the land of the bicycle. Like, I was putting my hands on the handlebar, had my camera bag in the basket, credit card out to rent it, but my conscience got the best of me and said no. I HAVE to come home safely. Every single time. And biking without a helmet can jeopardize that. I've always been so proud of myself for refusing to ride without one, and I stick to that value even here in København, the bike capital of the world. Too many people need me to come home safely to risk it for that.
(Danish Government: Can we get like helmet machines near the bike racks? If you can get beer out of a vending machine in a country where everyone drinks, you should be able to get a bike helmet if that's also a country where everyone bikes!)
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| Image Description: A white wooden boat sits in a canal, with colorful red, orange, and white houses in the background. |
Sadly, this neighborhood's things to do are mostly touristy restaurants and ice cream shops and shit, not coming to Danmark for a pizza place sorry not sorry. But just being here is beautiful. I got here right at golden hour to take the most gorgeous pictures I'd produce all trip, it felt authentic and lived in and not like Danmark was putting on some show, and this dude busking on the accordion was killing it!
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| Image Description: Across a watery canal, two boats are moored in front of a sidewalk, a covered white one and a larger bright red one. Behind the sidewalk are several houses in yellow, red, pink, blue, brick, and white, with red and black sloped roofs. One house has two large umbrellas with several plants on the street. |
Fun fact: Hans Christian Andersen was living here when he wrote The Little Mermaid.
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| Image Description: A city street at sunset, with people milling against the sun up and down a beautiful canal flanked by boat masts and colorful buildings. |
Many of the businesses here were touristy restaurants serving steak and pizza and stuff for a steep price. Seeing this was a huge relief, I think Les Voyageurs was the right call tonight!
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| Image Description: A bright red boat has a cabin reading "MARY NYVAHN GARMIN" on its tower. Multi-story European buildings and a luxurious white yacht sit across the water in the background. |
If I had unlimited golden hour lighting I could have stayed here and shot forever. These pictures could have come out total dog shit and I would not have cared, this is some of the most fun I've ever had doing photography. This place isn't about tacky restaurants, it's about walking around and sightseeing. And rocking out to some big dude with a beard shredding it on the accordion for a couple Krone.
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| Image Description: A ship's prow hangs a Danish flag against the backdrop of two buildings and a bridge across water. |
Knowing it was getting dark and I still had some more Copenhagening I wanted to do on the way back to Cabinn, I turned on my heel and headed back to Christianborg Palace.
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| Image Description: A gift shop has a section surrounded by Denmark merchandise, but this section sells piggy banks, dala horses, magnets, keychains, stickers, mugs, and so much more but branded with Sweden's flag and aesthetics. |
Swung by a souvenir place to get a little model Nyhavn for my wall of landmarks atop my dresser and saw this funny little geographically challenged clearance section. I want to know why they have all this Sweden shit.
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| Image Description: A tarnished green statue of a pirate holding a spyglass stands in front of a red brick building with a mast coming out of a round rotunda in the roof. "Danske Bank" can be seen on the bottom left. |
This place I think was some kind of pirate museum?
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| Image Description: A red brick church with a tarnished copper spire. The face has curves on the gable and a brass clock. |
There was also this church (assuming it was a church at all, here these buildings can be anything) I had seen, no idea what it was but I passed it more than once and thought the Scandinavian curves on the face of the gable were pretty. I know that's a feature I might see repeated next year so not sure how Swedish/Danish it is but it's something I didn't see in France.
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| Image Description: A view across water of a bridge and some concrete apartments. In the background is a tall, twisting, gold and black church spire spiraling up into the colorful twilight. |
I had seen this church (and I know it's a church) in photos, and getting it across the water at golden hour was kind of cool.
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| Image Description: Christianborg Palace casts a silouhette into the sky at sunset across the water, with a blockier, more abstract building and a tree to the left. |
Christianborg Palace at sunset.
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| Image Description: Down a city street with people on bikes, a large European building is covered in scaffolding at sunset. |
I was losing daylight, so I snagged the bus with my Rome2Rio app and bus pass to get back to the hotel. At the bus stop, this Danish lady was telling me this building from the 16th century burned and people cried over it and the Danish Government was busting the bank to fix it.
My French-American ass just wanted to slip the noose around my neck and ask, "first time?"
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| Image Description: A brick European building at sunset. |
Fortunately because public transport in København actually makes sense and works, I was making the walk from a bus stop to my hotel just twenty minutes later.
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| Image Description: A city street has a wall lined with overgrowth and parked bikes. Behind it can be seen a tower swing ride, a fake mountain with the catwalks of a wooden roller coaster. A timber-framed stucco building is set into the fence. |
Goodnight, Tivoli! You looked gorgeous all day as I walked past, see you tomorrow for real!
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| Image Description: A hotel room has a bed full of clutter, with a glass of wine in the foreground. |
I got back to the hotel, cracked open a bottle of wine, and left all my merch out to dry from getting poured on leaving Vester Hjermitslev this morning. Just wanted to end a relaxing day in the Danish capital with a glass of red wine and a shower, but someone in the hotel had other plans, because I had to hear some asshole blast Whoop There It Is across the courtyard of the hotel at 10 pm. Probably an obnoxious American tourist.
I went to bed way later than I should have. But I had an insane day the next day, the only time two-parking it on this trip as I hop between Europe's most famous amusement park and the world's oldest amusement park. Tivoli and Bakken both on the plate, which would I like more?
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| Image Description: A white Islamic-styled building strung with lights under a blue and orange sunset. |
UP NEXT: The final day in Scandinavia before I head home takes me to two classic amusement parks. One I would fall in love with, the other one I would basically storm out of. It's Tivoli and Bakken closing out SweDen 2024, check back later for my strong opinions on both!
