My husband and I have been wanting to take a trip to Europe for many years. We visited the Caribbean and Mexico, and a couple countries in South America together already, so we decided our next big trip would be to Europe. This was the perfect time for us as we celebrated our 10 year anniversary and my husband’s completion of his doctorate degree. Our parents tag teamed watching our kids during the week and a half we were gone. And while planning our trip it was so useful reading about other’s experiences and tips so I thought I would share some things we did and things that worked great and others that didn’t work so great.
When purchasing our flights, we used
Kayak which was awesome because there are so many customization tools to plan your trip perfectly. We bought a “hacker” deal which was basically a round trip ticket to Copenhagen, Denmark and a separate round trip ticket to Rome. We saved a couple hundred dollars off each ticket and we were able to spend extended layovers in Copenhagen and Brussels. When doing that, you just have to make sure your dates line up and you don’t book yourself to leave before you arrive… ahem… I may be speaking from experience..
We arrived in Copenhagen in the afternoon and took the train to the center of town. There at the train station we left our bags in lockers (we only had carry on luggage but didn’t want to haul our big backpacks everywhere-the lockers were a great option for us). Then we immediately bought a map-we did this in every city, even when we had our phones, sometimes the maps just worked better. There was plenty in the center of Copenhagen to keep us busy for the few hours we were there, so we just walked every where. We stopped by the Rosenborg Castle which houses the crown jewels. It was beautiful to walk around the grounds there. If you plan to go inside, they don’t allow large luggage, but have small lockers there.
{Me and my “just slept in a plane for seven hours” look}
We then walked to the Church of our Lady to see the original Christus statue. We have seen replica’s at Temple Square in Salt Lake City and saw the giant Christus statue in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, but it was cool seeing the original. The church was beautiful, white and so peaceful.
We then walked down the Stroget, one of the largest pedestrian walkways in Europe. We stopped in so many IKEA like stores. And walked through this market in one of the squares.
The ice cream was so delicious it was dipped in chocolate shavings. We got it from
Frellsen Chokolade on Kobmagergade (street).
We ate in the Kultovet plaza at a little cafe. We had traditional Danish open faced sandwiches. One thing I loved about eating there is they have you pay first, so then you can just leave when you want. I think it’s because some people stay for a long time just watching people and talking. I hate how here in the states you have to wait around for the check when you are ready to leave. Also, one thing that impressed me about Copenhagen was how kind people were are how well they spoke English. We had no problems getting around because there were a lot of things in English and people were willing to help us. They use Kroner there as their currency, so before we even left, we got some Kroner from our bank. They just ordered it and it took a few days to arrive. We did that with Euros also. We didn’t want to worry about exchanging money at the airport so we brought just enough to get us around for a little while. However, there were a lot of ATM’s and a lot of places accepted our credit cards, so it really wasn’t an issue getting money.
That evening we went to the ballet at the Opera House. We purchased these tickets in advance. It was a beautiful building and the ballet was amazing.
Then we picked up our bags from the train station locker and took a train back to the airport. We had just a handful of hours to wait until our flight left early the next morning. The airport was pretty cool. there were so many shops and restaurants. They even have apartments you can rent for the night-something I wish we would have done for those few hours instead of trying to get sleep on a bench….
Our airport meal, I miss those baguettes! We loved Copenhagen! It was cool how everyone rode their bike. I loved their style and wanted one of everything while I was there. It was pretty expensive though, so I did most of my shopping in Italy. Even things like water was about $2 more in Copenhagen than in Italy. I think if it didn’t get so cold in the winter I would want to live there. I was so impressed that it lived up to every expectation I had.
