It’s with great sadness that I leave Copenhagen today, bound for Berlin with a quick train change in Hamburg and what should hopefully be an interesting experience where my train gets put on a ferry between Denmark and Germany.
I’m very glad I got up the courage to act like a local and take a bike onto the streets of Copenhagen, as almost everyone else who lives here does too. It’s the way to get around. I don’t think I could have covered what I did yesterday waiting for buses or trains, all time that I would have spent waiting I was moving. Copenhagen is very very flat, I only went up one gentle hill to the cistern yesterday.
My train leaves at 7.35 but I got up early to get to the station and get some breakfast before it arrives. It’s been a drought here for a few months, and it broke overnight. It started poring at about 2am. The room doesn’t have aircon so I had the widow wide open and was woken literally by the rain as I was getting saturated.
Coffee at the station was at Lagkagehuset bakery, a nice “Danish” and coffee for about $12. Coffee was not exciting, but hand made, a passable 6/10. Probably equivalent to any station coffee you would get at home. The Danish was exceptional though.
I also successfully managed to spend most of my last Danish cash. I have 6 Kroner left. About A$1.30. One mistake I made in Denmark was bringing too much cash. I brought the equivalent of A$150 and I could have brought zero. Everywhere takes card and most places prefer card over cash even for tiny purchases. Metro ticket machines take cards. Some places (even street vendor food stalls) have a “card only” policy. My tip is bring 3 different cards just in case. I had no issues at all, one was fine but backups never hurt.
Copenhagen is the first city in Europe where I’ve had great coffee consistently outside of Italy. Whilst Italy has sensational coffee, Copenhagen has more what I’d term a more Australian style experience. Flat whites, large or small cups and takeaway cups. Those options are rare in Italy.
Language has not been an issue at all, everyone I spoke with spoke with flawless English, majority of times before even speaking I was greeted in English. As Mike from Mike Bike said, Denmark is a small country and it’s the only one where Danish is the native language, everyone speaks two or three languages, some even more.
The train was scheduled to leave at 7.35 however it was delayed. A minute or two before it was due to arrive they changed the platform to platform 5, and another train arrived on platform 6 for a different destination. There was complete pandemonium on the platform as no one was quite sure what train was what. Luckily there were DSB people on the platform telling people not to get on the train on platform 6 as it wasn’t for Hamburg. There were lots of people waiting for this train.
My carriage is empty though, I think I’m the only one on this section. Benefits of booking 1st class on the day the bookings opened.
It's all about the coffee 