Trip Highlights.

🚆 - The metro was super clean and easy, we took it from the airport and all over the city. We bought the Copenhagen Card Discover before we came, as it covers all metro transportation (including to and from the aiport, which we knew we would use), entracnce to Tivoli Gardens, many museums, canal boat tours, and even some activities outside of Copenhagen. It is worth looking at if you think you will take advantage of a lot of the covered activities.

🚲 - We didn’t brave the biking in Amsterdam, but the infrastructure in Copenhagen was so incredibly bike friendly; wide lanes and traffic signals, bike-only paths and bridges all over the city.  We first did a 3 hour guided city bike tour through GetYourGuide to get our feet wet and then rented bikes in our own once we felt comfortable through City Bike Adventures.  It’s a must-do experience in Copenhagen!

🥐 - Pastries are incredible! Buka bakery was right next to our AirBNB so we sampled their pistachio crossaint and the Cardamom Buns are a must-try!🤌🏻

🎢- Tivoli Gardens is not to be missed.  Quaint and beautiful amusement park right downtown with city views and no lines. Incredible! They also have concerts and entertainment in the summer, so check the calendar. They are not open in the winter.

🏰 - So many palaces and castles ! The crown 👑 jewels at Rosenborg castle (worth the ticket to explore inside and the gardens outside are beautiful), the home of the Danish Royal family at Amalienborg Palace, and the royal family’s summer residence at Fredericksburg Palace are all within the city and easy to visit.

🛕- beautiful views over the city from the 17th century Round Tower, the kids loved running up the spiral ramp to the top.

🏛️ - Museums!  So many museums.  We went to the National Museum of Denmark which had exhibitions on Viking history, Egyptian, Greeks, etc.  The kids loved it ! 

🛥️ - Nyhavn is the iconic waterfront and canal district which is not to be missed - hop on a canal boat ride! You can even rent your own Go Boat.

🧜🏻‍♀️ - Hans Christian Anderson is clearly the most famous Dane. There are statues of him and museums about him all around the city. The most famous of which is a statue honoring his little mermaid.  The statue itself is a little underwhelming, but there is a beautiful park there and it’s worth the trip to see her.

🌉- Sweden was a quick 30 minute train ride away over the famous Oresund bridge, a 7.8 km bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden. Malmo made for a lovely half day trip and the university town of Lund is also not far.

⛩️ - Freetown Christiania, a hippie community which operates independently from Copenhagen as its own alternative community with cool art and unique food options is a unique place to walk around and explore.

Restaurants

Since our trip was with children (ages 11 and 10) we didn’t go to any super fancy dinners. Kid friendly restaurants that we went to included Pincho Nation, a chain of circus-themed apps/tapas with super fun drinks. The kids loved this for the atmosphere and the fun of ordering a million tasty small plates. We also went to the Mikkeller brewery for dinner in Tivoli Gardens which was quick and easy with the kids, and the beer flights were nice for the adults. We also tried Restaurant Karla for traditional Danish cuisine, like roast pork dinner. Our fanciest dinner was at Madklubben Vesterbro to try a different area of the city. My favorite meal was actually a breakfast we had at Ø12 Coffee & Eatery. There are a few locations around the city and the coffee, juices, and breakfast plates were very good.

Our favorite thing to do for lunch was to walk or take the Metro over to Torvehallerne Food Hall which had so many yummy options for lunch and drinks and lots of indoor and outdoor seating. Another great food hall that we saw but didn’t get a chance to go to is Reffen, which I heard was even better.

AirBNB

For this trip, being that I hard a hard time finding a hotel that I wanted that had availability for 4 guests and since it was a short trip, i opted for an AirBNB apartment rental in the busy shopping district known as Strøget. I was a bit worried that it would be loud, but our apartment was tucked in a nice courtyard and we never heard street noise. It was a great location for exploring the city as it was steps from the Metro, Tivoli, and numerous restauraunts and coffee shops and a grocery store. The specific apartment we rented is linked here, and we really loved it here. I would highly recommend it if its available!