You Can Do Europe In The Cold, Wet Rain
A Long-Delayed Account of our Quick Trip to Copenhagen and Germany
Back in the spring, we had a chance to visit Lyman’s brother Zach and his wife Liz in Europe. Lyman had work travel to Bremen, Germany at a similar time as they had some flexibility, so we found train tickets to get him from Bremen to Copenhagen, found Ruth some cheap airfares, and made a trip of it! It was cold, it was wet: it was a ton of fun.
Day 0/1: Getting to Copenhagen
Logistics were tricky for this whole trip. Because Lyman was traveling for work, he had to fly in and out of Bremen, Germany, even though the main trip was planned for Copenhagen to meet Zach and Liz. However, it took a while for Lyman’s flights to be finalized, which pushed a lot of the planning later than we would have liked.
In the end, Ruth flew bag-less on WOW Air from DC to Copenhagen. Lyman carried all the luggage on his work ticket on Delta. Which meant he carried luggage for two from DC, through the Amsterdam airport, onto a flight to Bremen, across the cobblestone streets of Bremen from the airport to the train station, onto a train from Bremen to Copenhagen… and then basically that journey again on the way home. But in the end, we saved a lot of money taking cheap flights and the cheapest train or bus tickets we could find. However, costs while in country were higher than what is usual on our trips to developing countries.
Trip Tip 1: If you’re used to tourism in the developing world as we are, the price tags on European tourism can be debilitating. Get used to it! If you spend the whole trip worrying about the prices, you won’t have fun. When you plan, understand that your “incidentals” are going to be expensive, especially in high-priced Nordic countries. Don’t try to scrimp too much on that: consumption is part of the experience. And frankly, as pretty as it is, if you try and stick to the free stuff, you will really miss out. We did the trip as cheaply as we could, hence why we waited to do any European trip until Lyman’s airfare was paid for, but even with a free airfare, the cost per day was higher than our usual trips. We understood this up-front and planned accordingly, so it didn’t trouble our trip: but if you got a cheap WOW Air flight to Copenhagen and found a deal on an AirBnB and thought you’d do it for a few bucks a day, you will be SORELY disappointed.
HOWEVER, our journeys to Copenhagen yielded other benefits. For example, Lyman got to ride on a train WHICH WAS ENTIRELY LOADED ONTO A BOAT. That’s right. They drove the train straight onto the boat, and then sailed, with the train onboard, right across the Baltic Sea. The experience was too “big” to photograph adequately; it couldn’t all be captured in one picture.
Ruth, meanwhile, was on a flight with basically no food, no water, no reclining chairs, and no movies. Thanks, WOW! But for real, thanks! Such a flight is Ruth’s dream because it means the only entertainment is MAKING NEW FRIENDS! Ruth made a friend named Peter, who was Dane. Peter was an interesting guy, They talked about everything from work to family to religion. He assured Ruth he was Christian; after all, he was baptized! But he didn’t believe in God or anything like that. We would soon discover that this was a common characteristic of Danes.
But aside from that Peter gave Ruth some advice about what to do in Copenhagen. He said she should visit the “Freetown,” an alternative living community full of artists and people living a free life (that’s how he depicted it), she should climb the church tower of Our Savior church in Christianshavn, and she should visit the catacombs, “where people go to hang out.” She was pumped for Peter’s obviously awesome suggestions.
Trip Tip 2: Locals give a lot of advice on where to go. Listen to them. They may give good advice or bad advice, but you can bet their advice will be interesting.
Ruth got to Copenhagen on Sunday morning. She promptly met up with Zach and Liz, who had come down from Stockholm, and they did some sightseeing.
They had fun exploring Copenhagen, a city none of us had been to before. It was, as you can see, a little chilly, but Copenhagen is an eminently walkable city: tons of pedestrian streets, easy to find major sites, and virtually every corner is full of beautiful buildings, cute shops, and historic structures. Especially for Ruth, who had never really done any European city, the chance to explore one as renowned for its beautiful streets as Copenhagen was awesome. And of course, seeing Zach and Liz for the first time since they’d moved to Stockholm was awesome too!
Because Copenhagen is very walkable, we walked everywhere. This was great, because walking is cheap! However, it did mean that we did a lot of walking.
Trip Tip 3: Wear weather-appropriate footwear that can handle several miles of walking every day. To see the sights, you will inevitably do a lot of walking, and it’s mostly on hard stone streets. However cute your shoes are, make sure they’re good for the 8-miles-of-walking a day.
Trip Tip 4: Denmark in March is cold and rainy. Layers, waterproof outside, gloves and hats, and wind-resistance are essential. You will be spending lots of time outside walking, so be prepared for the elements. Extra socks are a must, even extra socks you can change into mid-day if your shoes get too wet. If being chilly and wet makes you a crabby person or unable to enjoy yourself, Copenhagen in March isn’t the right trip for you.
Finally that night, after some delays, Lyman’s train arrived in Copenhagen from Bremen.
Trip Tip 5: Shockingly to these Americans, the trains in Germany do not run on time! Not even remotely so! Virtually every train we rode on in Germany was delayed, or the platform changed 2 minutes before arrival, or there was some other itinerary change. Don’t count on your trains running with legendary German efficiency.
Our AirBnB was lovely, and perfectly situated in a beautiful part of Copenhagen. Unfortunately we didn’t take any pictures of it. We had 2 bedrooms, a big living room, an island kitchen, and a beautiful historic cobblestone street right out front. Alas, no pictures! That first night, Zach and Liz made some awesome tacos for dinner.
Day 2: Towers, Tombstones, and Swoopy Chairs
This day was one of our MAIN tourism times. So we intended to make the most of it. We got up early and headed out into the blustery day… and swiftly stopped off for some coffee because nobody survives a day walking around Copenhagen’s streets in March without something warm.
After coffee, THEN we got on our way.
First, we went to a big tower. It is creatively named, “The Round Tower.” I gather it has some history as an observatory of some kind. It was cool. We took pictures. Here are some of them.
Trip Tip 6: The Round Tower had a nice view, and the interior with its historic brick ramp was pretty neat. But with a fairly stiff entrance fee and high bars around the view, we wouldn’t recommend it to others. You’ll get a better experience at a different prominent viewpoint discussed below. It’s possible we missed something cool about the Round Tower…. but honestly it wasn’t wildly impressive.
After the Round Tower, we started hitting up the old Lutheran churches. Old churches are (1) very cool and (2) very common in Copenhagen. And since they’re old Lutheran churches, well, we had to check some out.
We don’t recall the name of this church, but it’s one of the older ones. It’s interesting because the pews face inwards, towards each other, in every row. We aren’t sure if people would sit both ways in every service and stare at each other, or if they just alternated depending on service settings.
This is art from, we think, the same church. We didn’t label our pictures well.
And yes, that is a reclining Danish monarch you see on the right. He’s set off to the left of the chancel, but very near the front, and seems like he’s throwing some serious shade at the altar. At left is a piece of chancel art showing the resurrection.
More art. You can see there are a lot of different styles and eras going on in this church. Danish Lutherans are apparently not the best at sticking with a style or motif. They just wanted to have all the styles.
More church art and design. I know I’m blitzing through this; it’s partly because we stepped into many churches and I don’t know which pictures are from which, and partly because it doesn’t matter. You should visit the old churches. Almost all of them have interesting stuff. One we apparently did not take pictures of was almost entirely this austere, neoclassical style, all in white marble. Every church was different, and all were worth stepping into and perusing for a while. Plus, they’re generally free to enter despite having remarkable art!
Trip Tip 7: Visit the churches! If for no other reason to warm up, step in and look at the church art and architecture. They are the primary canvasses on which Europeans painted their artistic ambitions for centuries. You may find some interesting gems, funny curiosities, or maybe even the Word of God. Though finding that last one in a Danish state church in Copenhagen maybe ain’t the most likely thing.
After these churches, we visited a palace museum, where we learned that the Danish Royal Family is hilariously dysfunctional. Multiple deaths of alcoholism, philandering, debauched parties turning into mass casualty disasters, bankruptcy, repeated dynastic failures… really Denmark’s royalty had to really get creative to tell their own story in a decent way. Lots of vague references to deaths of “lifestyle related causes.” The museum was so polite it was hardly bearable.
Then we got some lunch in one of Denmark’s various food vendor halls. We picked a place called Grod because, c’mon, that’s a cool name. But also because… well…
MAKE
PORRIDGE
GREAT
AGAIN
True story, their food was really good. We all tried different things and all left satisfied.
Trip Tip 8: Eat the weird and excessively fancified Danish food and Danish versions of other peoples’ foods. It turns out it’s really good. Apparently having miserable weather makes you really invest in learning how to cook well!
After lunch, we made a pilgrimage to the #1 thing Lyman was excited to see in Copenhagen.
The Kierkegaard family gravesite! The burial site of Soren Kierkegaard! Lyman, as you may or may not know, is an obsessive Soren Kierkegaard fanboy. His original hope for the Copenhagen visit was to just walk Kierkegaard’s regular circuit and visit various Kierkegaard sites…. but it turns out there aren’t many such sites! Kierkegaard’s boyhood home has been turned into a bank branch, a change he would find darkly humorous.
As we wandered around the graveyard, we ran across lots of interesting stuff.
A Medieval runestone! Hans Christian Andersen’s burial site! The graveyard map marks tons of famous peoples’ resting places. Overall, wandering around the graveyard in the damp cold was kind of creepy, kind of beautiful, in a melancholic way… and kind of just fun to get lost in a big beautiful park. We highly recommend it!
Trip Tip 9: Visit the Assistens Graveyard, wander around, see the graves of famous people, explore a bit! Also, here’s some fun trivia by way of Lyman’s Medievalist older brother: most runestones don’t record pagan myths or anything like that. They mostly record Christian burials, conversions, or totally mundane events. Surprised us too!
After considering our mortality sufficiently, we hit up some stores! Copenhagen has lots of wildly expensive furniture stores showcasing designer chairs and the like; sort of like IKEA for rich people. We visited several, but for some reason didn’t take pictures. After that we went to a big high-end Danish department store full of fun stuff… and also this egregious crime:
YOU HAD ONE JOB. IT’S LITERALLY THE NAME OF YOUR COMPANY. THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME GREEN; THEY AREN’T EVEN CLOSE.
Trip Tip 10: Even though Pantone is a LIE…. visiting all the unique stores in Copenhagen is a lot of fun. Even if you buy nothing, there are lots of neat decorating ideas, and it’s fun to see the strangely shaped swoopy chairs that are apparently all the rage in Scandinavia.
After that we headed home and made some dinner. It was our turn to cook… and we aren’t quite sure what we cooked. The trouble is we love Aldi in America…. but the Aldi in Denmark is NOT the same. They have a very poor selection. In fact, all of the grocery stores we visited in Copenhagen had an extremely limited selection. We vividly remember wandering around frustrated we couldn’t find the ingredients we wanted… and have no recollection of what we actually cooked! Maybe our award-winning white chicken chili…. but we really aren’t sure.
And that’s a wrap on Monday!
Day 3: Museums, Towers, and Pot-Heads
We woke up on day 3 and again trudged out into the blustery chill, ready for a day of exploring. Our intention was to visit the national history museum. And so we did! It’s in a neat building and has a lot of cool exhibits, although after about the Viking period the narrative structure of the history kind of falls apart and it’s just random exhibits without a lot of information. Still, here’s a picture of Lyman in Viking gear:
The helmet was a bit small.
After perusing the museum for a while, we continued just strolling around Copenhagen for a while, got some food, etc. Zach and Liz wanted to visit some other museums (Liz is getting her PhD in art history, so museums are sort of a big deal). We, however, were feeling some exploring. Specifically, we wanted to check out PETER’s recommendations! Remember Peter? From the airplane? We’d been persistently trying to convince Zach and Liz that Peter had great ideas and we should do them, but they weren’t keen. So we went and followed Peter’s suggestions on our own.
His first recommendation was Our Savior Lutheran Church in Christianshavn. Along the way, we enjoyed the scenic views of Copenhagen.
At long last, we came to Our Savior. Sadly, we had to pay another entrance fee to go up the belltower… but it was worth it. We first walked up some stairs in the belltower, through some exhibits about the Reformation (Luther would have died of shock if he’d seen the things the church exhibits claimed he believed), up some super creepy stairs through strange art exhibits of broken angel statues, and we sort of expected we’d eventually arrive at a viewing point. Well, we did…. and holy cow.
The view from the observation deck was awesome; way better than the Round Tower (and as we recall, entrance was cheaper too). It takes some stair-and-ladder climbing to get up there, but it’s worth it. The height is truly duzzying.
And once you reach the observation deck, there’s a terrifying spiral staircase around the spire of the church going up even higher! At the top, the staircase, which gets narrower and narrower as you ascend, simply dead-ends into the end of the spire. It is incredibly high up there and ferociously windy. For perspective, the top of the spire is about 90 meters up. From the ground to the torch of the Statue of Liberty is 93 meters. In other words, it’s comparable to the Statue of Liberty in height.
We took a video as we descended the exterior stairs. You can hear the wind.
Trip Tip 11: Go to Our Savior church in Christianshavn. It is awesome; one of the best views of the city and a remarkable experience. Be ready for a stiff climb and intense winds. Hold on to your hat!
So after Peter’s excellent recommendation for the church we figured, hey, we’ll try his second recommendation: the Freetown!
We knew nothing about the Freetown on our way in. Nothing at all. Peter had said it was some kind of commune with lots of artists. What we did know is that you aren’t supposed to take pictures inside the Freetown, as it is somehow detached from Danish law-enforcement and they value their privacy.
We realized we were in for a surprise when we approach the walls of the Freetown (yes, walls) and they were made of heavily-graffiti’d trash and spare plastic. Then we passed an entire street of marijuana vendors, followed by some crappy eateries for folks with the munchies. There were a lot of odd houses around the Freetown… but we actually found few or no artisans’ shops or interesting shopping. Apparently pot is their whole economy.
Later, we researched. The Freetown began as an abandoned military base. Squatters moved in and couldn’t be evicted. They formed a kind of corporate entity with commune shares, and work together to resist Danish law enforcement. They have their own internal rules, but have struggled to enforce them: criminal gangs have repeatedly attempted (some say succeeded) in co-opting the governance of the Freetown, and especially its lucrative drug trade. The Danish government has tried to exert its authority over the Freetown many times with very limited success. There have been a string of unsolved murders in the Freetown as well, one involving a hand grenade being tossed into a crowd.
Guys. Anarchy is bad.
Trip Tip 12: The Freetown revealed that bereft of the authority of law enforcement, society devolves into a drug den with no interesting industries or culture, filth and trash everywhere, and not very much to do or see. You should absolutely check it out; it’s an interesting cultural artifact.
After freetown, we decided maybe Peter’s suggestion of catacombs wouldn’t be next on our list. :)
Plus, we were cold and tired from a long day of walking, so we headed back to the AirBnB for a bit before heading back out to meet Zach and Liz again for dinner. It was our last night in Copenhagen, we went out to a nice restaurant with interesting and odd food… of which we took no pictures. Anyways, it was called Restaurant Cofoco, and was tons of fun, and quite hip. Much more hip than we are. But it was delicious. Again, enjoy the food in Copenhagen: there are tons of good places to eat!
Day 4: Into Germany
On Day 4, we got up, hung out for a bit, and then said our goodbyes to Zach and Liz. It’d been a short visit but a fun one! We were off to the next stop on our whirlwind tour of northern Europe! We took a bus from Copenhagen to Berlin. This allowed us to once again board a giant ferryboat.
It was very exciting.
Upon arriving in Berlin, we found that we were NOT where we expected! We expected to arrive at the Berlin train station by bus…. but actually we were dumped somewhere out in the suburbs. Quite disorienting! So with suitcases in tow, we found a nearby train station and hopped on board.
Three stops later, realizing we’d gone the wrong direction, we hopped off. We asked a German lady for some help with directions, but she spoke enough English to (rudely) tell us she didn’t speak any English and couldn’t help us.
Trip Tip 13: Danes are nice but Germans are not.
Eventually, we figured it out, and took the train into Berlin. We hopped off near the Tiergarten, which we’d been told was lovely and well worth a stroll. Now, granted, it was a blustery March day so perhaps not prime season, but even trying to visualize it in another season, the Tiergarten was… fine? It’s kind of like the U.S.’ National Mall…. except someone put a 4-lane highway through the middle of it.
Trip Tip 14: The Tiergarten is swell if you haven’t experienced the National Mall in Washington, DC. If you’re a DC resident, your reaction will be, “Really? This is it?”
The experience was so underwhelming we didn’t even take pictures of the walk except at one or two monuments. Finally, we got to the end of it, at the Brandenburg Gate.
And again, our thought was, “Oh. That’s smaller than we imagined.” Because it really is smaller than you imagine. And again, I’m sure it’s a very nice gate… but like the Lincoln Memorial dwarfs it. There were some interesting Cold War markers nearby, however. We tried to find the Holocaust museum, and we did find a large park with some granite slabs laid across it that was apparently a memorial that we didn’t really understand… but overall we were unsatisfied. However, we didn’t have time to linger. We had a train to catch!
We were headed to Wittenberg! It took us essentially the whole day to take the bus from Copenhagen to Berlin, wander Berlin for two hours or so, and then take the train from Berlin to Wittenberg. In Wittenberg we caught a cab to where we were staying, at the Lutheran center in the Old Latin School, and then tucked in for the night.
Day 5: Wittenberg!
It’s 2018. We’re Lutheran. Wittenberg is a MUST for the 500th year of the Reformation! And luckily, our denomination operates a guesthouse, Lutheran mission post, and cultural center in Wittenberg’s “Old Latin School” building. It’s a historic building dating from just shortly after Luther’s time, and is about 75 feet from the church where Luther did most of his preaching. It is in the historic heart of historic Wittenberg. It’s a beautiful building, reasonably affordable if simple accommodations, and we got to hang out with a friend who was the property manager at the time!
Trip Tip 15: We highly recommend staying at the Old Latin School. It’s affordable compared to your other options right in Wittenberg, it is incredibly conveniently located for seeing the sights, and they can help you figure out how to spend your time. It’s not a luxury hotel so amenities are a little more basic, but you probably didn’t visit Wittenberg for luxury hotels.
We had just one day in Wittenberg; slightly less than actually, as we planned to leave THAT NIGHT! So we spent our day doing some aggressive sightseeing… or at least as aggressive as we were physically able. Ruth was feeling sick that day, and ended up vomiting in a public restroom. But still, she’s a tough cookie, so we saw all the sights anyways.
And, by the way, in case you didn’t know, Wittenberg is really small. You can walk the whole of the town worth seeing in a day, at most two days.
Trip Tip 16: DO NOT plan more than 2 days in Wittenberg. You won’t need it. Unless you’re doing some kind of archival research project in which case maybe you’ll need it. But really, a day or two is plenty.
We were enormously pleased with Wittenberg. It’s a small, cozy little town that still looks and feels Medieval in a way that i.e. Berlin simply did not. Wittenberg avoided most of the destruction of WWII, hence its good condition.
Even aside from the historic sites related to the Reformation, we just enjoyed walking around the town and enjoying the sights. It was a brisk day, but not wet and blustery the way Copenhagen and Berlin had been.
And of course, we also saw the historic sites.
After a full day of sightseeing, and some awesome potato soup/shepherd’s pie/something in German we didn’t understand, we schlepped back to the train station. We caught the late train back to Berlin, then to our hotel. We found a cheap places called Acama Hotel & Hostel in Kreuzberg, Berlin. It wasn’t great. Again, our price expectations are set by developing countries, so sticker-shock in Europe often led us to book discount options. But we wouldn’t be there long: we crashed for the night, planning a full day of sightseeing in Berlin the next day.
Day 6: Berlin, Again!
We were back in Berlin for another day! It was cold that day, and ferociously windy, so we opted for some indoors activities. We love the Smithsonians, so we decided to go to the national history museum of Germany. We spent basically the entire day doing the entire museum.
Well, first we had some awesome brunch at… someplace nearby whose name we did not record. On our second pass through Berlin, we had good food. But after brunch, we spent the day learning about Holy Roman Emperors, the rise of Brandenburg, the printing press, excitingly designed Prussian office uniforms, and of course the late unpleasantness 1934–1945. It was a neat museum; very linear storytelling (which we appreciated). Not extremely photogenic; basically we did lots of reading and going, “Hm, interesting!”
Trip Tip 17: The national history museum is very interesting. We learned a lot. Would recommend!
After the museum we were going to go to the island in the river with all the big buildings. We’d heard you could go into the big church at night and that it was very beautiful. And then it turned out the church was closed that night. So we just stood in the cold and snow for a little while instead.
Then we headed back to our room, changed into some nicer clothes, and braved the cold again to go to dinner. A friend had recommended a restaurant simply called “Austria.” You’ll Never Guess what kind of food they specialize in! That’s right. Austrian food.
Anyways, it turned out to be delicious… and we were starving and totally forgot to take pictures of the food. But the decor was delightful: lots of dead animals on the walls!
Then we headed back to the room and went to sleep, our heads full of thoughts of Holy Roman Emperors and unusual Austrian dumplings.
Day 7: On to Bremen!
Alas, on Day 7, we separated. Ruth headed to the airport in Berlin to fly home, as she only had the one week of vacation. Lyman headed back to Bremen, where he was attending a conference for work. We won’t do details of Bremen other than to show a few pictures and say Lyman feels like an idiot that he didn’t find a way to bring Ruth to Bremen. He’s written in the past about Bremen’s delightful local food culture. But aside from that, the city is basically still Medieval, as it wasn’t bombed much in WWII. It is quaint, lovely, has interesting food and shopping, and is really very nearly the ideal place for a long weekend or a few days of tourism. We wouldn’t recommend it for a long vacation but 2–4 days would be a ton of fun there.
Trip Tip 18: Bremen is awesome. Go. Eat the knipp and walk around in Schnoor. Buy stuff to take home.
This is much briefer than our usual travel blogs… but alas we tarried overlong in writing it so many little details have escaped us. Additionally, it was a shorter trip, and we took substantially fewer pictures as much of it we was hanging out with Zach and Liz and enjoying family time, which is much better than photos.
We hope this helps you plan your trip to the Hanseatic League!
