Delicious Danish Drinks

So a fairly significant amount of my time in Denmark has centered around drinks, whether they be of the caffeinated or alcoholic variety. Popping into a cafe or bar is a nice way to take a break in the afternoon or evening, and can be a great way  to enjoy a Copenhagen patio. So I figured a blog post was in store to share interesting aspects about drinking in Copenhagen!

Caffeine

As in most places in Europe, drip coffee is not a standard cafe menu option. The Danes are all about espresso, with many cafes lining the streets. Ian and I are bodum coffee drinkers at home, and opted not to pack our bodum once our Airbnb host confirmed his kitchen is stocked with a bodum and coffee bean grinder. Perfect, we thought. Well, true to European form, we’ve replaced our morning bodum coffee with a daily morning espresso. This habit was kicked off when one of my best friends came to visit for a couple days, with Italian espresso in tow. Ever since her visit at the very beginning of our trip, we’ve been sipping espresso over breakfast.

Large morning espressos.

Yet since we’re used to larger quantities of caffeine, most afternoons involve stopping in to a local cafe to grab another caffeinated beverage. There are an abundance of cafes in our neighbourhood (Vesterbro) so it’s easy to walk downstairs and grab something. Or, we might take a break, visit another neighbourhood, and pop into a cafe there. Either way, Copenhagen has an abundance. All have free wifi, which we kinda love, and most have benches on the sidewalk in front of their storefront. It is far more common here to have patio benches than patio tables and chairs. They take up less sidewalk space, and they’re more communal.

Standard Copenhagen cafe storefront with communal tables and long benches.

Cortado at Laundromat cafe in Norrebro. Delicious!

Latte at Retro cafe in Norrebro. This is a non-profit coffee shop, operated by volunteers!

Lattes at Norrebro’s Coffee Collective, one of Copenhagen’s top roasters. The space was great, but the latte was too milky.

Pricing: Caffeinated beverages are pricey in Denmark, or at least in Copenhagen. We’d been forewarned that Copenhagen is expensive, and this is true largely for restaurant food and drink. Grocery store prices are reasonable to standard vis-a-vis Canada, but an espresso will easily cost $6-$7 CAD.

And lastly, Danes appear to love their independent cafes, or very small local chains. There is one mainstream chain cafe I see fairly frequently otherwise they are independents. Starbucks is essentially a no-show here. Because I’d seen so few locations, I googled it. Outside of mall locations, the airport, and the train station, there appear to be only a couple Starbucks locations in Copenhagen. While Danes love their coffee, they love their independents and obviously the demand is not there for Starbucks, which is especially overpriced here. A grande latte runs you $10 CAD.

Alcohol 

Like caffeinated drinks, beer is also expensive in Denmark if you’re going out for a pint. At Mikkeller, Copenhagen’s most comprehensive beer bar, now with multiple locations, two pints cost us exactly $30 CAD. That being said, the beer was delicious. With over 40 taps to choose from and employees who willing hand out samples, you’d be hard pressed not to find something for everyone. Further, the atmosphere at each location is fun, hip, and with minimalist Scandinavian style. I didn’t want to be that person taking pictures of the entire bar, but here are a couple I managed to grab.

Mikkeller & Friends in Norrebro. Can you tell Norrebro’s one of our favourite neighbourhoods?

Love these glasses at the original Mikkeller Bar.

I absolutely loved these washroom door signs at Mikkeller and Friends.

Because Copenhagen is home to Carlsberg brewery, there’s a wide selection of different Carlsberg brews. We stocked up on a number at the grocery store to try throughout our stay.

Given our close proximity to Sweden, we took a short commuter train ride to Malmö, Sweden, on Tuesday for the afternoon/evening, mainly so we could say we’ve been to Sweden. It was not very different from Denmark, except tipping small quantities at restaurants and bars is customary, unlike in Denmark. Luckily, we’d learned this so we could tip our friendly and amazing bartender at Malmö Brygghus.

Neat malt centrepieces at Malmö Brygghus.

Like many places in the world, though unlike many Canadian provinces, alcohol is sold in grocery stores here. Prices are reasonable and comparable to Canada. Further, grocery stores accept empties in an automated bottle return machine, and spit out store credits. No need to go to a separate location to return your bottles!

Lastly, public drinking is also allowed. So if you want to grab a beer and drink it in a park, go right ahead!  Further, many restaurants and bars have beverages (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) available to stay or to go. A cocktail bar below has this sandwich board sign:

Take away cocktail sidewalk sign.

Despite the price tags, drinks in Denmark are of a very high standard and delicious. We still have several spots left on our list of recommendations for drinks and espresso as we kick off our final week in Copenhagen.

On today’s agenda: train ride north of the city to Louisiana, Denmark’s premiere modern art museum. It’s along the water so we’re bringing our bikes to ride up and down the coast, checking out the large mansions that line the water’s edge.

Happy weekend!

Copenhagen’s Active Activities

I’m so jealous of the ample opportunities to build activity and physical fitness into daily life in Copenhagen. Firstly, the weather is particularly amenable to such a lifestyle. It’s a rather temperate climate, never (or rarely) deviating from moderate temperatures. Summers don’t get overly hot nor do winters get overly cold. Cycling becomes a feasible year-round activity.

5 Neat Things that encourage an Active Lifestyle 

1. Stair Climbing: I would LOVE to live in a 5-storey walk-up, and

   

   Our Vesterbro apartment building (at centre).

   live on the top floor, like we’re doing for 3 weeks. Five and six-storey walk-ups are the standard across downtown Copenhagen. Like most buildings, ours pre-dated modern “lifts” or elevators. The higher up you are, the more exercise is automatically built into your daily life!

2. Pickup Football (aka Soccer to us North Americans): Americans have

   

   Enclosed soccer court with built-in nets.

   their fair share of enclosed basketball courts, especially in the inner-cities. Well, Europeans (or at least Copenhagan-ites) have their fair share of enclosed soccer courts where space doesn’t permit for turf or grass. I’ve seen a fair share of casual, neighbourhood pickup games and drills thus far. It makes me want to start playing soccer again.

Sites from some of Copenhagen’s running trails, including the elephant pen at the zoo! There were elephants the first time I passed, but they were inside when I returned with my camera.

 

3. Running Trails: With views such as this, running (or walking) is a very enjoyable activity in Copenhagen. The extensive park and pathway (pedestrian and/or cycling) network across the city makes it pretty easy to run away from busy sidewalks. I love cycling, but it’s also great that runners can safely run on certain marked paths where cycling is prohibited. Copenhagen does a great job of marking spaces and advising what kind of users are allowed.

4. Active and Welcoming Public Spaces: This city encourages public participation by offering interesting, welcoming and mixed public spaces that encourage various demographics to linger, whether it be to sit on a park bench for lunch, read a book on a hill, watch children as they play, or skateboard. There’s something for everyone. Including this climbing wall in a Norrebro city park. It’s BYO climbing gear. Liability is clearly not as much of a concern here as in Canada. I think this fosters a greater sense of adventure and freedom, and encourages people to interact differently in public spaces.  These spaces are almost uniformly integrated with pedestrian pathways and bike networks, ensuring a constant flow of passersby.

Funky public and active spaces in Norrebro.

Public (and giant) climbing wall in a city park!

5. Cycling: See my previous post here. Little else to add here except this fun fact: 35% of people who work in Copenhagen cycle to work. That’s 1/3 of the working population! Amazing. And there are also more bikes in the city than inhabitants. See this article for more fun stats on cyclists.

Fittingly (no pun intended!), I’ll  be spending this Sunday running my 5th half-marathon right here in Copenhagen. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to run a race outside of North America, which is literally passing right outside the apartment. I’m really looking forward to seeing what, if anything, is different about a European race. The route is my favourite kind – flat and a circular loop, with no doubling back on the same strip. It’ll be an interesting way to see the city, at least those parts I have not yet explored.

Wish me luck – my training has been pretty lackluster!

Copenhagen: A cyclist’s paradise

Welcome (back) to my blog, now resurrected for what I have been referring to as my extended honeymoon. My partner Ian had an opportunity to travel this semester and write remotely. We couldn’t pass it up, so here we are in Europe for 4 weeks then switching gears and heading to Japan for our official honeymoon – 2 weeks of pure vacation bliss.

Evening rush hour traffic

Our first, and longest stop, is in Copenhagen. To some, this was a somewhat random choice but to us it is a wonderful  opportunity. After reading about Copenhagen’s arguable advantages from a city design perspective, in books such as Straphanger by Taras Gresco and Happy City by Charles Montgomery, Ian and I became mutually intrigued by what is regarded as the Happiest City in the World. We decided to take the plunge and see what Copenhagen is all about.

Parking outside a Fotex store (large retail chain)

Bikes. Copenhagen is all about bikes. We knew this before we arrived, but I still don’t think it was possible to fully comprehend the role which bikes play in this city until you’ve been here and seen it for yourself. Below are my top 5 highlights re Copenhagen cycling.

1. Traffic lights, for cyclists

Dedicated traffic signal (green light) for cyclists

In Copenhagen, drivers, pedestrians and cyclists (at many intersections) each get their own traffic lights/signals. This ensures that each user of the road understands what they are and are not allowed to do at all times. As someone not overly familiar with road rules where separated bike lanes are concerned, I very much appreciate being told what to do.

2. Extensive, safe cycling infrastructure

Copenhagen-ites are extremely lucky. They enjoy an expansive network of separated bike lanes throughout the city (approx. 415 km currently) making cycling extremely safe and simple. Almost every road in the city centre has two-way bike lanes. Even where there is on-street car parking, bike lanes are almost always found inside the parked cars offering increased protection from vehicles.

3. Unlocked bikes?

Rows and rows of “unlocked” bikes

One of my naive moments upon arriving in Copenhagen was when I said to Ian, “Interesting how no one locks their bikes here. They’re very trusting.” At a glance, bikes aren’t locked here. However, when I went to rent my bike I realized that that’s not the case. Bikes here are locked, but they use a locking system that’s way better than the chunky locks we use in

Close-up of bike lock on back wheel

North America. Theirs wrap around the back wheel and are non-discrete, using a key to both lock and unlock. This means you can literally park your bike anywhere (within reason and not in the way) without having to hunt for space on a pole to lock the bike to. Because let’s face it, there’s no way there would be enough poles in Copenhagen to accommodate all the bikes.

4. Sheltered parking

Sheltered Bike Parking

Copenhagen gets a fair amount of rain. This doesn’t preclude locals from cycling – many appear to have invested in a smart wardrobe of rain jackets and in some cases rain

Interior of bike shelter

pants, meaning they can find protection from the elements while still riding. Even though many cyclists appear to dress for cycling, there is still great infrastructure to allow many people to park their bikes in sheltered areas. For instance, this bike parking facility is located near a main entrance to a mall, making it far easier and faster to bike and park than to drive and park.

5. Bike signage

At least within the city centre, there are signs posted advising cyclists the distance to various destinations, such as attractions and neighbourhoods. I think this really captures not only how common cycling is in the city, but the respect and resources offered to cyclists to provide convenience and a positive experience.

Final thoughts

I’m very much looking forward to cycling around the city over the next 2 weeks. Not only does it build in activity to our commuting experience, but it also provides a wonderful opportunity to see the city from above ground while saving time vs. walking.  This exposure to Copenhagen’s cycling culture gives me ammunition to encourage the building of separated bike lanes in my home city of Waterloo, Ontario. The first (albeit short) network of separated bike lanes has recently been approved for construction so that’s a great starting point, but there is still so much left to be done.