A Copenhagen city break: Tivoli, Nyhavn and 48 hours in Denmark

Copenhagen became country 38 of my 40 before 40 challenge. We had just two nights in Denmark, with plans to explore Vesterbro, Tivoli Gardens, Nyhavn and central Copenhagen. Gastroenteritis wiped out rather more of the trip than planned, but we still managed to pack a surprising amount into a very short Copenhagen city break.

So, country 38, Denmark, happened. It almost didn’t due to my terrible immune system. I had felt a bit rough following a meal at the local pub the day before but, heck, I went away without the ability to walk earlier in the year, so a bit of a dodgy tum wasn’t going to stop me.

I’d booked this pretty late and so it became quite expensive. Flights were £323 for the two of us. If I’d booked them in advance, they would have been half that, if not even cheaper. Hotel choices were poor too if we didn’t want to pay £1,000. I settled for Wake-up Copenhagen, a pretty budget hotel with decent reviews.

Rarely do I take extra luggage unless we are going for a week or more. Thank you, Mr Ryan of Air. I will squish this bag into your metal box and it will fit under the seat. Who cares if, like that Scottish band, I’ve had the same jeans on for four days now?

I hadn’t booked transport or parking at the airport so we just got an Uber. I swear this is the least organised I’ve ever been before a trip. Good job Adam organised a cat sitter or Chester would be going out of his damn mind with hunger after a full day not stuffing his big, fat, ginger chops. Thank you, Catherine and Gary.

Got to the airport in relatively good time. The security queue was absolutely enormous. Literally never seen it so long. Luckily, since you no longer have to remove all of your fluids, it is much quicker and you can get through to buy more fluids before the flight.

The flight was fairly standard. Packed, uncomfortable but short. When I checked in I did the sneaky thing of checking one in with random allocation and then buying the seat next to it. I’m fairly sure the price was more than it would have been to just buy two seats together at the time of booking. Security on the opposite side took forever too. Thanks, Brexit! I also discovered something else while we were queuing. I had a black eye! You can probably see it in some of the pictures. Now, you can be forgiven for thinking I’d had a run-in with Mike Tyson, but the actual story is much more dull. I injected my head with Botox, twizzled the needle round to see the graduations on the syringe, got a haematoma on my forehead, and it migrated into the corner of my eye.

Getting to Copenhagen and where we stayed

Knackered, we opted for the taxi as opposed to the train, which I believe is very reliable and terminated near our hotel. It was around £26 but worth it for the comfort. We arrived at the hotel. Early. Two hours early. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the standard rooms available but there were upgraded rooms available earlier. Who’d have thunk it 🙄. We begrudgingly paid the extra €40 and headed up to our upgraded room. I would absolutely hate to have seen the standard ones if that was an upgrade. It was like a cupboard with a shower. The bed was wonky, the pillows were square, and the mattress was stained. Brill.

Vesterbro and Copenhagen’s Meatpacking District

Our intended hour’s nap turned into four until we forced ourselves up and out. We walked down to the old Meatpacking District. Which, by the way, is as gross as it sounds. Unit upon unit of disused slaughterhouses now home to the trendiest of Copenhagen’s residents. It was so busy we actually couldn’t get a place anywhere. Fashion Week, apparently. We wouldn’t have fit in. On the way we had walked through a derelict square of an old government building where lots of the local drug consumption takes place. It felt a bit like a zombie apocalypse, except aiming for the head was replaced with the vein and administering something to knock them back out again. Not me personally.

Anyway, unperturbed by the above, Adam had noticed a burger place around the corner called Burger Garage. Burger and fries were really nice. The first time. We then skipped to a bar called Gaia which did lovely cocktails inspired by the words of Lewis Carroll in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and the waiter gave a little blurb with each drink. Cute. We walked back via 7-Eleven, which Adam was desperate to go to. I felt a bit sick when I was eating my Magnum so we walked it off.

Now you may notice I said about tasting the burger and fries the first time earlier and feeling sick. Well, that’s because I got to experience it again when it was being fired out of my mouth and nose. Oh, I was so sick. I’ve never been that bad. Firing out one end while chucking up in the sink, sick in a bag next to the bed. It was awful. Not even to mention that I’m steroid dependent, so one round of D&V can see me off to see the big man in the sky. I do have injectable steroids but I wasn’t sure when, or if, it was going to get worse, so I decided to try to save them as much as possible.

I had a fever-dream sleep once my abdominal muscles stopped trying to wring out my empty stomach for the last bits of poison. You know when nothing is coming up. A bit like that bit in I’m Alan Partridge but with nobody shining a torch at me.

I told Adam to go out in the morning and leave me to sleep it off. He went to Cisternerne, which was an underground exhibition by that woman who let people slap her and cut her and stuff in that one performance piece.

Tivoli Gardens at night

He came back and had a nap too. I woke up later in the evening, still felt really off, but I needed to get out. We had planned to go to Tivoli for the evening. I’d heard the nicest part of it was the lights after dark, so we went around 6.30pm thinking we would only be there for a couple of hours. Oh boy, was I wrong. It was literally the cutest, fun, beautiful, vintage-type fairground that I have ever been to and I could have spent many more hours there. Adam isn’t a fan of rides so we concentrated on the side games, which he was really good at. I got a few tokens too, which we exchanged for a panda soft toy and a pen with a football on it. Oh, and we won three new friends from the claw machines. I was NOT good at the archery game. Turns out I wouldn’t be very good at aiming needles at zombie addicts either. I mean, look what happened with my earlier needle anecdote. I should have already known my aim was not on point.

They weren’t wrong about Tivoli being beautiful after dark. Everything lit up and it felt magical in a classy way. Honestly, I would go back just to go here again. There was a big Japanese pagoda lit up next to a lake with a pirate ship in it and then, in the background, you could hear the screams coming from the roller coaster behind.

Nyhavn and our last day in Copenhagen

It closed at 11pm and so we headed back to the hotel knowing we had to check out in the morning. We pretty much fell asleep straight away and then woke up in the morning to pack up. Now you may recall I had only purchased the small under-seat bag option from Ryanair and that I had also gathered FOUR new soft toys at the fair. They would never have squished into our bags and fit in the little militant measuring box at the gate, so I had to get creative. I had my CPAP on me, which takes a bit of room up and is allowed to be carried, free of charge, on Ryanair flights as a separate piece of luggage. Soooo now we just needed to find a bag to put it in, put the toys in my backpack and Bob’s your uncle. We decided if worst came to worst I would have to buy something at the airport and use my “one shopping bag” allowance to sneak on Mr Cyclops. They don’t know where I bought him.

We walked down the riverfront to Nyhavn, which is where you see all the colourful buildings on postcards. There was a food court with street food vendors nearby. I still didn’t want to eat at this point though. We walked down the main shopping street and it was getting hotter and hotter and we had pretty heavy bags, so this had to end. We wandered off the main drag looking for shade and liquid. We ended up in a little restaurant, Sole D’Italia, for a refreshing Fanta and a lovely pizza, which I had a bit of.

Some idiot guy poked the parasol with a broom handle thinking he was getting the water out from above his head, but what he actually did was send the water the opposite way and all over Adam and our drinks. We did not hide our anger at this and we didn’t pay for those drinks. I did say it’s not the establishment’s fault, but they could ask yon mon to cover our drinks seeing as he was the one that carelessly tipped cacky water into them. I’m fairly certain they just let it go. Frustrations were high and we decided to leave to restore peace in our lives.

We got an ice cream from a vendor and sat down in the shade to eat it. It was the nicest ice cream I think I’ve ever tasted. The first time.

Now, again, you may have noticed that I said “the first time”, and this is because within 15 minutes I was being sick a jar of Nutella. The sweetest vomit ever. But I knew what it was. Onlookers did not, and will have seen what I can only describe as shit being projected from my poor, poor body. Taxi!

Literally. We got a taxi to the airport and ended our Copenhagen adventure and country number 38.

You’ll be pleased to know 39 and 40 have been booked and will be reaching your inbox (if you subscribe. If you don’t, please do) by my 40th milestone and deadline for my 40 countries challenge.

So, I’ll be seeing you soon. Hopefully with fewer vomit stories.

But for now, Copenhagen, you have my heart. And my guts.

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🧳 UNPACKED: Was Copenhagen worth it?

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Would I go back? Absolutely.

Biggest surprise? Tivoli. I’d expected colourful houses, but not one of the most magical places I’ve ever visited.

What didn’t I expect? The visible drug scene around parts of Vesterbro and quite how expensive Copenhagen would be.

Top tip? Book restaurants in advance, especially if Fashion Week is on. And maybe don’t eat at Burger Garage…

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📦 Pack Here

If you’re planning your own Copenhagen trip, here’s everything I used or would recommend.

✈️ Travel

• Flights to Copenhagen – Skyscanner
• Tivoli Gardens tickets- Official Website

🎒 Packing

• Cabin backpack – Herschel Supply Co.
• 20,000mAh power bank – Anker or Belkin are usually good shouts.

📱 Essentials

• EU roaming or eSIM
• Any regular medication
• Rehydration sachets (you’ll hopefully never need them, but I certainly did.)