On our first evening, we arrived a bit late for a full dinner, so we strolled past the impressive city hall and the adorable entrance to the Tivoli amusement park:
City hall and its fascinating dragon-fighting-a-bull fountain...
Entrance to Tivoli, which has been a garden, amusement park, and entertainment venue since 1843...
So, so pretty!
The next morning, we went straight to Torvehallerne, the city's ridiculously magical market for all things foodie. (Sighhhhhh. Honest to goodness, I could just pack up and move into this market. So glorious.)
We started with excellent cappuccinos from the Coffee Collective, then went immediately across the aisle to indulge in a huge, terrifically-frosted cinnamon roll...
...followed by barbacoa and fresh cheese tacos, and then by a jianbing (essentially, a Chinese crepe-like sandwich stuffed with hot sauce, cabbage, egg, and I'm not quite sure what else). Yummm.
This market also gots lots of gorgeous fresh flowers.
And produce--look at these little tomatoes!
And the purplest of cauliflowers!
And, of course, a stand selling a plethora of varieties of absolutely gorgeous smørrebrød, the famous Danish open-faced sandwiches. If we'd only had another day here, I would have come back and eaten solely these. (Also featured in this market: gadgetry and cookbook shops; various conserve, dessert, and chocolate counters; beautiful, fresh, take-and-bake meals and pre-made salads; stunning butchery, cheesery, and bakery vendors; and all manner of small restaurants and take-away foods. Ughhhhhhh, Copenhagen's having this kind of variety and quality available, every single day, makes my head all full of envy. (Zürich: we need this.)
Next up, we strolled along the wondrous street Gothersgade, where we found this incredible little below-street-level antique shop containing the highest concentration of champagne buckets I've ever seen in my life...
...along with a magnificent selection of wee stuffed birds wearing feathered crowns. (If I could have figured out how to safely get home either that bucket above and/or one of these birds, it would have been a done deal. Sold.)
Copenhagen is dotted with these ornate little kiosks, which very definitely caught my attention due to their tiny size and over-the-top ornateness. Of the handful of kiosks we saw, some of them are currently boarded up, and some are (very cleverly, I think) used as coffee stops or tiny cafes, but they all began life in the early 20th as telephone booths--although not the kind you're thinking of. These were actually manned--to be more accurate, ladied, if you will--by an operator who charged for outgoing phone calls (and also sold magazines, newspapers, stamps, etc.) and by a bike messenger who delivered messages to private citizens without their own phones. Fascinating. (And now I want to collect them all.)
Next stop, the Designmuseum Denmark, because one must. (When in Denmark, oder...?)
Oh, sure, there was plenty of sleek, modern, Scandinavian design, like this nifty Turning Boxes set of drawers (Hans Sandgren Jacobsen, 2016).
Danish chairs, industrial design, blah, blah, blah...*
...but I was not expecting a rather large and stunning collection of Art Nouveau items. Holy cow. (Sorry, kids. If you thought you were in for some delicious Danish design, this is about to take a turn.)
Amazing teal pitcher by--who else?--those Daum brothers from NancyFrance.
Ohhhhhh, this cabinet. It was made sometime before 1900 by Eugene Gaillard, whose entire body of work (according to teh Interwebs, which I have consulted just now) is just stunning. (Am going to educate myself further on this matter, ASAP.)
Look at that. How is it even possible that those little squiggles at the top are wood??
Terrible photo of a room designed by Scottish architect Charles Rennie Macintosh and his wife, Margaret Macdonald (who was responsible for most of the interior design and details), in 1901. Interestingly enough, this design was disqualified on a technicality during the competition for which it was created, but someone actually built this house in the 1990s.
Danish Art Nouveau! For whatever reason, there are two words that I know in several languages: "cheers" and "Art Nouveau." The Danish word for the latter is Skønvirke.
Stylized and pretty.
In the museum's "Creme de la Creme" exhibit, the had several large and extraordinary Ming vases on display. This one was made between 1573 and 1620. (And also, dragons!!)
Also in said exhibit, which features "top pieces from the museum’s older collections that have seldom, or never, been shown in the museum," they had an entire room of Toulouse-Lautrec posters from the late 19th and early 20th centuries!
A. May. Zing.
Back outside the museum, I found not one, not two, but three lovely and distinct manhole covers. This city does love its design.
I can't tell you why I'm so taken with these.
I just find the variety and uniqueness-to-location fascinating, I suppose.
And really, what a strange object to prettify. I don't know why you'd need birdies and trees on your manhole cover, but it makes me happy that they're there!
Post-museum, we made our way back to our hotel to get ready for dinner, and passed many interesting/pretty things along the way. For example, this stork fountain!
This lovely square with statue of Bishop Absalon! Who was a bishop/soldier/king's advisor/enlightened statesman/defender of the kingdom against Slavic pirates (!) in the 12th century, and who built the first fortifications in the city that became modern-day Copenhagen. (It's not so often that I've seen a bishop portrayed as a chain-mail-wearing, axe-bearing horseman. Fascinating.)
The mad, totally one-off spire of the Børsen, Copenhagen's 17th-century stock exchange...
...which looks like this. Sadly, we didn't really have time to go check this thing out, but apparently, it's now an event venue and not open to the public. Booooooo.
Squid 'n favas 'n peas. Yummo, and just so lovely.
Mains. Mine was so, so pretty!
After dinner we decided to check out another cocktail bar and ended up at Strøm, where we had just a tremendous evening rubbing elbows with some crazy/fun locals; chatting with our talented and gracious bartender; and staying out generally way too late. (An irreplicable, hilarious, and tasty evening, to be sure.)
Then, we took a quick stroll past the city hall for me to take some actual daylight photos...
...so many weird, neat little details!...
...rhino-dragons?...
...hey, there's Absalon again...
...and then it was off to the National Museum of Denmark to check out some Viking stuff, wooooooo! They don't fool around at this museum: first thing you see when you walk in the main entrance is a collection of these massive Viking-era rune stones, erected by the rich to commemorate their dead in the 10th and 11th centuries. (This 10th-century one says, "Ragnhild, Ulf's sister, placed this stone and made this mound in memory of her husband Gunulf, a clamorous man, Naerve's son. Few will now be born better than him." Amazing.)**
Of course, they've got tons of stuff that's not Viking-related, too, and it's an excellent collection. Here, unbelievably minute detail on this ceremonial axe fished out of a bog (probably a votive offering--this museum has TONS of things-from-bogs!), where it was thrown sometime between 1500 and 1300 BC. (Ugh, none of my photos of these remarkable axes came out in focus. Sorry, kids.)
Lur horns found in bogs, all made between 1200 and 700 BC. (According to the museum, lur horns are cast-bronze wind instruments probably used in religious rituals around 1000 BC.)
Another bog-offering, this time made of gold, from 1000 - 800 BC.
One of three horned helmets in the entire museum. The image of a Viking-in-horned-helmet is, essentially, a 19th-century myth, albeit one that may have been inspired by these helmets. Not to mention that these are much older than the Viking culture; this one dates to 900 BC. In all likelihood, these helmets were worn by priest-type figures for religious purposes, as something like this would be utterly impractical in battle. All of that having been said, some ancient depictions of horned-helmet-wearing warriors are assumed to actually refer to berserkers! (For freaking real.)
Ooh, swords. These are from 1600 - 1500 BC.
Some really old stone battle axes from 3900 - 3300 BC. (Such fine, fine workmanship.)
Holy crap, the Danish National Museum has an aurochs. This guy died around 8600 BC. (Aurochs were massive, undomesticated cattle that went extinct when the last one died in Poland in 1627.)***
Coin from a 3rd-century grave with runic spelling of a man's name--Alugod--around the left side.
Viking hoards! These pieces came from a golden hoard buried around the 10th century AD...and that charm in the middle is a Thor's Hammer. (What!!)
More Viking stuff!! Between 400 and 1000 AD, women were commonly buried with their jewelry and household furnishings, and the museum has actual hundreds (if not thousands, probably) of these types of pieces.
The magnificent Gundestrup cauldron, probably made in Romania or Bulgaria sometime in the century(ish) before the birth of Christ. No one has any idea how it got to Denmark.
There's plenty of more modern stuff, of course, like this stunning stuccoed ceiling from 1640.
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya..."
I can tell you without a doubt that my fascination with swords stems directly from that movie. (Not positive, but I think this is a Spanish sword from the 16th or early 17th century.)
Here's something interesting: Reformation "propaganda." These are papier mache portraits of Erasmus and Martin Luther pressed from plaster moulds created in the workshop of Albert von Soest around the middle of the 16th century. The use of moulds allowed for many, many copies of these portraits to be produced and distributed; hence, super useful for spreading the humanist message.
Back outside, we passed the mighty Christiansborg palace...
Next time we go inside...!
...and a lovely canal...
...and then it was off to dinner in the meat-packing district (where we took an unfortunate shortcut through probably the murderiest place I've ever been--important tip: when going to the meat-packing district, stick to the main road!) at the busy and marvelous Kødbyens Fiskebar. This is the sister restaurant of Musling, and we usually would have opted for someplace less related to food we'd already had, but Denmark in July is both packed with tourists and half closed for summer holidays, so our options were limited. No regrets, however: the food here is freaking fantastic. We shared small plates of mackerel with mackerel mayo, fresh tomatoes and onions, the tiniest of edible flowers, and pistachio; seaweed salad with lemon zest, sesame seeds, and mustard puree (yummmmm); roasted squid with pickled radish, blueberry dust, fermented garlic and squid ink sauce; smoked fish & chips; hake with baby corn puree and squid ink; new potatoes with sweet onion sauce, plenty of butter, and baby corn; and all served with this ridiculously great bread on the side, which came with salted butter that had purple seaweed (!) in it. For dessert, we split a plate each of strawberries with sweet cream, bee pollen, and strawberry granita; and rhubarb over custard with a cinnamon crust and vanilla sauce. (Yeah, I know, it sounds like MOUNDS of food, but each dish was quite small and quite complex. 14/10, would eat again.)
And, of course, it's all beautiful. If you're going to be a raging food-nerd like myself and take photos of your food everywhere, Copenhagen is a great place to do it. (This was the mackerel and the seaweed salad, alongside my gorgeous cocktail involving fresh peas, lemon, and gin.)
Squid and fish-n-chips.
Dessert!!
The next morning--you guessed it!--it was time to eat again, and so we trekked out to Reffen, Copenhagen's soon-to-be-magnificent, "urban playground" for street food and small sustainable businesses/workshops. The place is ramshackle in the best possible way, built in and around old warehouses, shipping containers, and stylish little shacks that are full of yet more gorgeous food. When we were there, the place was maybe a third empty, still waiting on a few businesses and food purveyors to finish setting up their shops, but believe me when I tell you that it's great already. We knew we were going to have a big dinner, and so, unfortunately, we had to pace ourselves, but we still had a wondrous little Icelandic cheesecake (lemon and white chocolate, and I wanted to try the raspberry, but Mike wouldn't let me, "oh, we don't want to ruin our dinner," booooo), a couple of excellent cappuccinos, and a heap of nachos topped with shredded achiote pork, black bean mash, sweet potato/onion mix, green and red salsas, melted cheddar, and sliced avocado.
Cheeeeeeesecaaaaake!
Nachos and a (mostly-ice) bucket of dark-n-stormys made with tequila (which, unsurprisingly, but rather innovatively on my dear husband's part, I thought, tasted quite a bit like margaritas).
Love.
If they won't have me at Torvehallerne, then maybe they'd let me move in here. I could earn my keep as a taste-tester or something; QA/QC is important!
Sadly, sadly departing from Reffen, we took the ferry back into town (hands-down, the best way to get out there!) and strolled up through Nyhavn, the neighborhood you see on postcards of Copenhagen...where literally every other tourist in town apparently was, at that precise moment in time. Ugh.
Yeah, it's really pretty and picturesque, but hard to appreciate in the crush of humanity buffeting you on all sides.
Next, we hauled our cookies out to the National Aquarium, which, frankly, is a pain in the rear to reach with public transportation and, in my opinion, isn't really worth the effort. (Unless maybe you have kids, but we certainly don't.) I will say, they have a very cool shark/ray/eel tank, and they have sea. otters. As luck would have it, it was otter feedin' time when we showed up, so we got to watch them play with blocks of frozen shrimp and (delightfully!!) dine on their backs. (Because they're so clever, and need a fair amount of challenge and stimulation for their otter brains, their handlers freeze the shrimp in ice and let the otters figure out how to get to it. Which generally involves lots of bonking the blocks on the glass and rolling over to dunk them in the water. It's mesmerizing to watch.)
Unfortunately, the glass between us and them was filthy, and we were at a bad angle, and there were a TON of other people around (whose reflections I caught much better than the actual otters), so you get a couple of crappily-edited photos.
You get the idea, though. Otters. Munching.
It took forever to get out there and back, so by the time we returned to the city center, it was nearly dinnertime. Our last big meal in Copenhagen was at 108, the sister restaurant of Noma, which was, for those of you not quite as into food lore as we crazies, the number-one restaurant in the world in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014. Naturally, one cannot book at Noma with just a few weeks' warning, so we headed instead to 108, which was absolutely divine (and, for anxious types such as myself, far less intimidating than I feel Noma might be, on many levels). Naturally, we opted for the tasting menu, and each course was both attractive and tremendously good. A few examples...
Green peas and porcini in porcini broth.
Greens and herbs with roasted seaweed and almond oil and sorbet. (Best salad of my life. And also, I can't seem to stop eating seaweed. It's so crazy good.)
The edible portion of this dish--grilled lobster tail--is underneath this big bundle of juniper, with which it was grilled. (There's also lobster butter with gooseberry and lemon verbena underneath.)
The second dessert: kombu seaweed ice cream with hazelnut oil and Royal Belgian caviar. Seriously. This stuff was nutty and creamy and sweet and salty, but not at all fishy or weird in any way. It was awesome.
That, friends, was a really great meal, and while I can't say the service was quite as stellar I was expecting, it was absolutely worth a visit and I'd go back anytime.
The next day, we headed straight for the airport, and, after a couple of surprisingly good smørrebrød's, flew back to Zürich, where Mike split for the US and I came on home. Culinarily- and culturally speaking, I'd say Copenhagen absolutely lived up to the hype, and I'll be 100% on board the next time a chance rolls around to go northward. (And then, we'll both eat and visit some palaces. There are so many there!)
Next up: NYC, the return! (Yes, again. I'm hooked.)
*Just to be clear, I'm a big fan of Danish (and Scandinavian) design in general. Especially of the mid-century variety. And that's what we came to this museum looking for, but, as always, for me, the (unexpected) Art Nouveau stole the show. Sigh. I'm so, so predictable. Also, this is Finn Juhl's "bone chair" from 1944. Neat.
***An article I just read called them "wild supercows," heh. Just FYI, they think the animals depicted in the cave paintings at Lascaux were aurochs, how neat is that?? And, it looks like there are efforts underway to reintroduce as close a modern relative as possible to the aurochs back into the wild in certain parts of Europe. Seriously.
