Copenhagen, Denmark

July 2025

First Thoughts

This was my second experience of complete solo-travel, Dublin being the first one. Copenhagen had been planted in my head as an idea back in early 2025 when a friend of mine suggested it as a trip. Unfortunately, our calendars clashed, and we couldn’t find a time together, so we ended up going at different times. Despite my best efforts to find a travelling companion for this trip, I ended up going on my own and committed to planning a trip that was just for me.

My enthusiasm for Copenhagen only increased when I watched a new documentary by Simon Reeve on the BBC, where he travelled all over Scandinavia, including visiting both Malmo and Copenhagen, the two cities I wanted to go to. Certain sustainability projects in Copenhagen then came up in lessons I had to teach at work (I’m a Geography teacher), which only informed my trip further.

After a few months of build-up and then some quite last-minute planning, in July 2025, I set off for Copenhagen – my first time in Scandinavia.

Day One

The trip began with a walk from my flat to my local train station – leaving the car on the drive this time. I took a thirty-minute walk, suitcase in tow, from my flat to Wilmslow station. One of the best things about living in Wilmslow is that it is only a few miles from Manchester Airport. I took a two-stop train to Manchester Airport Train Station, and then swiftly checked in, giving myself plenty of time to hang out in the airport duty-free. It being the middle of the summer, it was light as the plane took off around 7 pm, but dark as it landed in Copenhagen at 10 pm.

It felt a unique excitement as we arrived in Copenhagen, looking out of my nearest window to see the lighted-up outline of the Oresund Bridge, a huge cross-channel bridge spanning between Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmo. To see something I had checked out on Google maps so many times in the flesh was very exciting. Once we landed at Copenhagen airport, it felt relatively efficient to get out and into the Copenhagen airport train station, a dimly lit, atmospheric ‘underground’ station.

The train took me to Copenhagen Central Station, or Kobenhavn H, which was very similar to the likes of stations like London Waterloo or Paddington for size and aesthetics. From Kobenhavn H, I headed out onto the main street outside and was instantly reminded of Amsterdam; straight, narrow streets, with bicycles chained up in their dozens. On my way to my hostel, I ended up bumping into a man I recognised from my train. Although I forgot his name, I found out he was Spanish and was in Copenhagen as part of a layover on his way to Sweden, where he was to take part in the World Ultimate Frisbee championships.

Me and my Frisbee aficionado companion went our separate ways once we checked into our hostel, The Steel House Copenhagen. The Steel House was interesting; it is a very large, cheap hostel, with plenty of extras; however, all those extras, the food, the kitchen, the small swimming pool, the cinema, will all cost you extra on top of the original booking. After checking in at around midnight, I bought myself the first of what was to be many Carlsberg beers and hung out in the foyer, filling in my travel diary before I turned in for the night at about 1 am.

Images
- Top left: Copenhagen Airport upon arrival
- Top right: Copnhegan airport train station

- Bottom left: Exit from Kobenhavn H

- Bottom right: The lobby of Steel House Copenhagen, once I checked in

Day Two

On Day two, I was tired. I hadn’t gotten in until very late the night before, and I had a busy day ahead of me. I had planned the trip in a way that would mean I would do several things each day, with this first full day being the ‘mainstream Copenhagen attractions’. I’d organised two things to make this easier, too: one) bought a Copenhagen Card, a limited-time pass which allowed you entry to many of the city’s main tourist attractions and public transport options, and two) hired a bike from a place called ‘Bike Rental Copenhagen’ for roughly £10 a day.

After breakfast at the Steel House, I set out on the underground train network to the station closest to the rental shop, which happened to be through a restaurant, down a flight of stairs and into a heated basement full of tired-looking bicycles. I found one that suited me, and I was off to the first main attraction, The Little Mermaid statue. Despite being one of Copenhagen’s most famous attractions, I found it to be somewhat disappointing; a small, grey statue, surrounded by tourists queuing to get a quick selfie with it. I parked up the bike and took a walk around the Kastellet area, a park with an old military base, now a museum, in the middle of it. It was here that I learnt that Denmark is both very proud of their history and heritage, and likes to have quite a lot of wars. Quite like the UK, I guess.

After I walked around Valstallet, I moved on to the first big attraction I wanted to visit, the Natural History Museum of Denmark, which was included in the Copenhagen Card attractions. Although it wasn’t the largest natural history museum I’ve ever been to (the ones in London and Berlin are much larger), I enjoyed the focus on wildlife found within the Kingdom of Denmark, which, given that it also includes Greenland, included all kinds of arctic animals such as Polar Bears. I had a quick lunch in the museum café, before popping my head into the neighbouring Kunst Museum. I realised I didn’t have enough time to do the things I really wanted to do if I stayed there, and I moved on.

From the Natural History and Kunst Museums, I started to cycle roughly back towards the Steel House. My main stop for the afternoon was the relatively new Museum of Copenhagen, another attraction covered by the card. This museum turned out to be my favourite of the day, and told the story of Copenhagen as a city; how it originated as a trading port vital to Denmark, before it grew and became the country’s capital. From there, I took a quick stop on Stroget, the nearby main shopping street of Copenhagen (think Oxford Street with cobbles) and had a coffee at a place called Espresso House, a chain coffee store like Nero or Costa, found in Denmark, the other Nordic countries and Germany.

After that, the weather took a turn for the worse, and I stopped briefly by Tivoli Gardens, the world’s very first theme park, before heading back to the Steel House. At the Steel House, I swam in the very small hostel swimming pool before talking to a few other travellers using the hostel late into the evening.

Images
- Top left: The SteelHouse Copenhagen
- Top right: The Tortoise in Inderhavnsbroen

- Bottom left: Me and the Little Mermaid Statue

- Bottom right: Copenhagen City Hall

Day Three

Day three was another day which I knew was going to be busy – I was off to Roskilde, a small city close to Copenhagen, and covered by the Copenhagen Card for both public transport access and attractions entry. Roskilde wasn’t just any old small city, however; it was the historical capital of Denmark before Copenhagen, and was home to some major tourist attractions. When my gran visited Copenhagen when I was young, she had said that her day trip to Roskilde had actually been her favourite part of the trip.

I cycled to Kobenhavn H, and took the train out to Roskilde’s central station. The moment I left the train, I realised why my gran had liked the place so much – instead of busy, straight, narrow roads full of cars and bicycles, Roskilde had bending, cobbled streets, with barely any cars to be seen. Within a few minutes, I was at the first of the two things I wanted to see: Roskilde Cathedral. More than just a cathedral, it was a UNESCO World Heritage site, with the last forty Danish monarchs buried onsite, making it the country’s equivalent to Westminster Abbey. I enjoyed the walk around the cathedral, where I learnt about the larger-than-life characters from the Danish royal family, such as Frederick IX, who had massively modernised the monarchy, or his father, Christian X, who was aggressively traditional but became popular due to his strong anti-German stance during World War One.

After lunch from a van in the square outside the cathedral, I headed downhill from the city centre to the beach, where I knew I’d find the other big attraction, the Viking Boat Museum. This museum was set up after four different Viking boats were found in the sands of Roskilde Bay, and then were painstakingly recovered bit by bit. Along with the originals found in the museum itself, the staff at the museum have recreated the four boats with modern technology, and the replicas sit on the docks outside, alongside a heap of modern sailing boats. I learnt that the largest of these four had had its seaworthiness tested by a voyage to Cork, in Ireland, which I felt was extremely brave.

I departed the boat museum, but as I did, I ended up walking through a local car show that had been set up in the field behind the museum, and made my way back up to the main city square, where I enjoyed a fantastic Smorgasbord from a restaurant called Umamii Sushi Roskilde, opposite the cathedral. I soaked up the last of the daylight before taking an evening return train back to Copenhagen, spending the evening consuming Carlsberg and planning my next book in my writing journal.

Images
- Top left: Double-decker train departing from Kobenhavn H
- Top right: High street in Roskilde

- Bottom left: Roskilde Cathedral

- Bottom right: One of the replica Viking boats in Roskilde Harbour

Day Four

Day Four focused on the tourist attractions south of the harbour running through Copenhagen, or ‘Copenhagen Indie attractions’. I took my hired bike, which by this point in the trip I had nicknamed ‘the tortoise’ as it was unable to get it above a moderate jogging pace. I started by heading past Kobenhavn H and on to my first stop, Islands Brygge, perhaps the largest and most popular of Copenhagen’s multiple harbour baths.

While many things in Copenhagen reminded me of home in the UK, the harbour baths certainly were a little different; large, roped off public baths on the side of the harbour, clean, safe and free to use. I got changed under a towel and stood at the harbour’s edge, and then simply…got in. There were kids' pools, a 50-metre lane section and a small diving tower, all for residents and tourists to use for free. I thought back to the videos I’d played my students in lessons, where the ex-mayor of Copenhagen had talked passionately about how he was proud of these swimming baths.

From the harbour baths, I cycled down one side of the harbour, crossing the beautiful Circle Bridge before ending up at the Broen Street Food market, two attractions I’d seen on Instagram whilst researching Copenhagen. After a quick look around in Broen, I parted ways with the equivalent of £23 to buy my lunch, a huge newspaper cone full of chips, onion rings and fish bites. I cycled on to my next big stop, Christianatown, a hippie settlement that had been absorbed by the larger city of Copenhagen.

I wandered the streets of Christianatown, a funky neighbourhood with shack-like houses, full of tourists photographing everything, but behind all of the show, people still live in the buildings. I picked up a couple of fridge magnets as gifts from the Christianatown Art Gallery, where I learnt about the area’s history with marijuana trading. From Christianatown, I cycled out to my last big stop of the day, and one of the attractions I was most excited for – Copenhill. Copenhill is a renewable power station, with a dry ski slope, man-made hill and the world’s tallest man-made climbing wall all built down the side. There’s also a pub at the top. Yes, it's as strange as it sounds.

I’d learnt about Copenhill during my teacher training, and it had always been at the back of my mind to go to it one day. I hiked up the man-made hill, had a Carlsberg at the summit to celebrate, and looked over the city, as well as towards the Oresund Bridge and Malmo the other way, looking forward to what was to come. I then cycled back to the Steel House, passing through the famous Nyhavn (the street from all the Copenhagen postcards) before heading out in the evening for an anticlimactic night at Zeppelin, Copenhagen’s number one and only rock bar.

Images:
- Top left: Islands Brygge Harbour Baths
- Top right: Entranceway to Christiana Freetown

- Bottom left: Copenhill

- Bottom right: Nyhavn high street

Day Five

By Day five, my Copenhagen card had expired – but I booked specific train tickets over the Oresund Strait to Malmö, Sweden. I could tell that I was not in the United Kingdom as the train arrived on time, was clean, left on time, and I didn’t require any additional booking to put the rental bike on it – in fact, there was an entire carriage dedicated to storing bicycles, and it was clear many people had had the same idea as me. The biggest disappointment was the fact that the train travelled along the lower level of the impressive Oresund Bridge, meaning that I didn’t manage to get a very good view from the engineering marvel.

Arriving in Sweden, for some reason, I expected Abba to be playing from every street corner, in some kind of nationalised speaker system, but I didn’t hear any the whole day. I cycled out from Malmo’s main station towards their central harbour, which, like Copenhagen’s, was lined with huge office buildings such as Malmo’s university. Simon Reeve’s documentary had painted quite a bleak picture of Malmo, with heavy crime rates and high gun ownership, but that is certainly not the Malmo I saw.

After cycling through the city centre, my first stop was the Disgusting Food Museum, a hilarious experience displaying plastic mock-ups of unpleasant food from around the world, although I was unhappy that British delicacies such as Haggis and Black Pudding were included on that list. After trying a few real versions of these foods, such as crickets and dried beetles, I stopped for lunch at another Espresso House. I was astonished that everyone in the queue and working behind the counter, no matter their nationality, was speaking English.

I then cycled on through Malmo’s main park, King’s Park, or Kungsparken, and paid for entry to go into Malmo Museum, a museum that covers history, art and natural history built inside Malmo Castle. There I learnt more about the city’s history, how when Denmark controlled the southern part of Sweden, Danish king Erik VII had made Malmö their largest city outside of Copenhagen itself. I also learnt that over their history, Sweden and Denmark have had more wars with one another than anyone can officially count – although everyone seems on much better terms these days.

This day ended with one last ride, up towards the Hundbadet beach. The sun was in the sky, and I was treated to a couple of incredible sights: Turning Torso, the second-tallest building in Scandinavia, and a Lidl supermarket on its home turf. I went out to the sea front, cycled along the front, and parked my bike on the edge of the beach. I got changed and swam into the sea, finding it warm and clear. After that, I cycled back to Malmo station and took the prebooked return train back to Kobenhavn H and the Steel House. Once back at the hostel, I had one last Carlsberg with a fellow traveller I had first bumped into on Day 2, before heading to bed.

Images:
- Top left: Malmo Harbour with the Utblick Sculpture in the foreground
- Top right: Slottsmollan Windmill

- Bottom left: Turning Torso, with the Tortoise resting on Hundbadet beach in the foreground

- Bottom right: Me stood on Malmo promenade

Day Six

The final day was quick. I had breakfast and was up and out, cycling ‘the Tortoise’ back to Copenhagen bike hire. I found the shop as odd as the first time I had been there, and from there took one last walk all the way along Strogen, taking in the early morning sights along the way. As I passed through the city hall square, there was an event on, a super-gymnastics show called ‘Throwdown’.

I checked out of the Steel House and walked with all my stuff back to Kobenhavn H, where I took the return train to the airport.

Everything in Denmark and Sweden was plain sailing, everything ran when it said it would, and of course, the first hiccup was my train being cancelled from Manchester Airport. Two other countries, no problem. Five miles from my house, there was an issue. After lots of grumbling, I decided to get an Uber from the airport back to mine.

Image: Copenhagen City Hall with Throwdown gymnastics show in the foreground

Final Thoughts

Copenhagen was one the finest trips I’ve done since I started travelling again. It built my confidence as a solo traveller, achieving so much in only a handful of days. I did everything I set out to do, and it was euphoric to see things like Copenhill, Turning Torso and the Oresund Bridge, which I had looked at so many times before going there. I found the casual cycling culture in both Copenhagen and Malmo very refreshing, and in some ways, it was like Amsterdam without the seedy areas.

Coming away from the city, I felt that it was as good as I had been told it was (my then boss had told me Copenhagen was his FAVOURITE place in the entire world), and I feel that there is plenty of reason to go back, to see even more of the city and the surrounding area. Maybe one day.

Useful Links

https://www.visitcopenhagen.com/ - Copenhagen official tourism website

https://www.visitdenmark.com/ - Denmark official tourism website

https://visitsweden.com/ - Sweden official tourism website

https://malmo.se/ - Malmo official tourism website

https://www.publictransport.dk/ - Copenhagen transport guide website

https://www.steelhousecopenhagen.com/ - Steel House Copenhagen website