Copenhagen (Denmark)

...haven't spent enough time in Copenhagen to write comprehensively about the place, only 5 days, but I'm hoping that what I have to say will complement other people's reviews on ciao. In particular, I can introduce the Copenhagen jazz festival, as this was the reason why I went to the city in the first place.

Copenhagen is a lovely city. To me, it's almost the exact opposite of London, which I have to admit is a city that I don't like ...
...unsafe. Whereas Copenhagen just seems much lighter, and clean, open, and harmless. The open-ness comes partly from the bicycle lanes (an inordinate amount of people cycle in Copenhagen, and there are bikes lying around all over the city), which substantially increase the width of the roads, creating more space, and also partly from the obvious lack of sky-scrappers and high-rise buildings. A lot of people leave their bicycles unattended and unlocked ... more

This is a bit of a hotchpotch review. I will admit that I haven't spent enough time in Copenhagen to write comprehensively about the place, only 5 days, but I'm hoping that what I have to say will complement other people's reviews on ciao. In particular, I can introduce the Copenhagen jazz festival, as this was the reason why I went to the city in the first place.

Copenhagen is a lovely city. To me, it's almost the exact opposite of London, which I have to admit is a city that I don't like at all. London, in four words: grey, dirty, claustrophobic, and unsafe. Whereas Copenhagen just seems much lighter, and clean, open, and harmless. The open-ness comes partly from the bicycle lanes (an inordinate amount of people cycle in Copenhagen, and there are bikes lying around all over the city), which substantially increase the width of the roads, creating more space, and also partly from the obvious lack of sky-scrappers and high-rise buildings. A lot of people leave their bicycles unattended and unlocked in public places around the city, and although a Danish friend told me that a few do get stolen (I suppose it would be a bit of a freak city if there wasn't at least a bit of petty crime going on somewhere), obviously not enough are stolen to stop people from leaving them around anyway in the first place. It comes across as being a very safe city. And Copenhagen is full of colourful, light buildings.

Copenhagen admittedly isn't really a city you think of first when debating where to go to get a bit of culture and history over a weekend break - places like Rome, and Barcelona, for example, just seem so much more obvious. And it wouldn't have been a place I'd have thought of at all if it hadn't of been for the jazz festival. Which I will come to shortly. But first, the matter of accommodation. I stayed with my friends for 5 days in the campsite Charlottenlund Fort. We chose to camp here because it seemed to be the cheapest place in Copenhagen - cheaper than all of the hostels, and hotels. The prices vary as to how big your tent is, or whether you've got a car, or whether you want electricity or not, and so on, but for us - we just had two small tents without electricity or car - it cost about £8 a night per person. And it was lovely. The campsite was situated on the waterfront, in Copenhagen but out of the centre, complete with its own little sandy beach, moat, and canons. I assume to defend the fort when there was one. The showers and toilets were surprisingly clean, there was a small cooking area, washing machines, and a restaurant too. I definitely recommend it.

As for getting into the centre from the campsite, it takes about 40 minutes by bus, and the buses run every 20 minutes, until some time around 12 or 1 am. A 10-journey bus pass costs about £1.50 a journey. And the buses are good, and amazingly, actually run on time. I suppose this is what all the Dane's tax goes into. As for transport in general, Copenhagen also has a small metro system, and obviously cycling, with all the bike lanes, is one of the best ways to get around the city. There are even some free bikes lying around the city that you can just pick up and then discard where you like. You can tell which ones they are because the wheels, and I think the frames also to an extent, are filled in. It may take a bit of searching to find them - I only saw a few while I was there - but they definitely exist. And Copenhagen is also a nice, and small enough, city to walk around, which is probably the best way of seeing things too.

***

Five Possible Things To Do Or Not in Copenhagen:

1) The Little Mermaid. The little mermaid is a diddy statue inspired by H. C. Anderson's fairytale, and sits on a boulder in the water just offshore of Copenhagen's harbour. This is supposed to be one of Copenhagen's must-see, can't miss top-5 tourist highlights, but I've heard from a number of people who've actually seen it that it really isn't worth the visit. The mermaid is quite a walk from the city centre, it takes a while to get out to it, and it's just tiny, in a particularly unspectacular sort-of way.

2) The Tivoli Gardens. The Tivoli Gardens comprise of a sort-of random tiny theme park/garden in the middle of city centre. I had heard amazing things about Tivoli, before I went, everyone I knew or had heard of who'd been to Copenhagen had said that it demanded a visit. Tivoli, however, we discovered, is expensive. And hence, for a poor student like myself, not all that amazing. Almost everything in Tivoli costs something, apart from the toilets. It's quite pretty, I suppose, with a lake, and hanging baskets, and random Japanese-looking buildings, some restaurants, a lot of small food stalls, and a few rides. But it costs about £6 just to get in, and then the rides all cost too, on top of that. It's just a bit of an odd place, Tivoli - if you really want rides, then it's probably much better to go and find a proper theme park, but once you ignore the rides there's not that much to do, except eat an expensive meal and admire the hanging baskets. But Tivoli does looks quite good all lit up at night, though. In a particularly cheesy sort of way.

3) A lot of people, for views of the city, go up the Round Tower, which is right in the middle of Copenhagen. But we found that the views from the Church of our Saviour, in Christianshavn, were far better. There's quite a lot of steps to climb, but the views from the church spire are three times higher up than those from the Round Tower, so it's definitely worth the walk out of the centre just to see the city properly from high up.

4) Christiana. Christiana is a sort of self-run community, in the middle of and yet independent from the rest of Copenhagen, which was set up about 30 years ago when a load of hippies decided to settle down on some unused land which at the time belonged to the Ministry of Defence. While Christiana has made a few concessions to the tourism it was obviously going to attract - a small café, a shop, a picnic area - at the same time tourists just look so obviously out of place. We only had a quick look around, feeling a bit out of place ourselves, but it was worth it anyway, because it's just so different. If you've never looked round a hippy commune before then I fully recommend this one. It's full of graffiti, murals on the walls, colourful shacks and structurally dodgy looking homes, dogs wandering round on their own, signs up everywhere which declare that you should 'just say NO to hard drugs', and bright blue picnic tables.

5) For a fantastic, as-much-as-you-can-eat, vegetarian buffet, for about £5 (which, in Copenhagen, makes an incredibly cheap meal) go to Riz-Raz, a Mediterranean restaurant close to the centre and Tivoli. It's a really lovely place to eat, and the waiters are nice and friendly.

***

And so, onto the jazz festival.

The jazz festival is held every early July for just over a week. This year, 2005, it was held from the 1st to the 10th of July. There are a mammoth number of gigs, over 500 concerts in total, held every day from around midday till 3 am. Most of the concerts indoors, in pubs, or cafes, or jazz bars, cost something (the cost varies, ranging from around £5 to £20), but nearly all of the gigs outside, in the parks or squares, are free. And the great thing is that the free stuff is just as good quality as the stuff that costs. When I went with my friends we stuck, after our first night, to the free gigs held outside, and we heard some fantastic music. Which just wouldn't happen in England, and certainly not in London. It was lovely to be able to wander round the city and just stumble across some jazz, then sit outside in a square for a bit and listen to whatever was going on, with a drink, before moving on to something else. And the great thing about having so many free gigs on (apart from the fact that they don't cost anything, obviously) is that you can experiment a bit, and try out stuff that you might not usually go for, without feeling like you've lost anything.

And there's such a huge variety of music. Traditional, old-man jazz, swing, cheesey jazz, more modern stuff, avant-garde jazz, world jazz, upbeat jazz, more laid back jazz, soul, there's a bit of everything. And some quite big names too - in 2005, among others, both Chick Corea and the Hilliard Ensemble made an appearance. There are also a series of concerts aimed specifically at children, held in one of the parks. We managed to find ourselves in the middle of one of these gigs the second day we got to Copenhagen, surrounded by a sea of little children dancing and jumping up and down and clapping along to the Danish group Afenginn, who were performing some very entertaining and lively Balkan-esqe sort-of jazz. But the great thing about children is that they're incapable of blocking your view of the stage even when they're standing up, unless they're standing up right in front of you.

So maybe Copenhagen isn't the obvious weekend city break away, and I will admit that, had it of not been for the jazz festival, I doubt that I would have found enough to do or to see to keep me entertained for very long. But it is a really lovely city, colourful, and open, and safe, and a wonderful setting to hear some great jazz. (Another good thing about Copenhagen is that nearly everyone speaks pretty good English - highly useful, especially when the only other option is Danish.) I hugely recommend the jazz festival. It can be such a cheap way to hear some great music. There's so much on, with so much variety, and it's so easy to get between gigs, walking or cycling.

Charlottenlund fort campsite: http://www.campingcopenhagen.dk/gb/gbwel.html
Jazz festival: http://festival.jazz.dk
Riz Raz information: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/copenhagen/D31664.html

 

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