Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen…
…friendly old girl of town. If you can name that reference then you, sir, belong on this gay cruise. Starting in Copenhagen is the most perfect, peaceful way to kick off nine days of gay exploration of Northern Europe. Copenhagen exemplifies the graceful, clean-living Scandinavian spirit you’ve heard about but never quite believed existed. It’s quiet, it’s ridiculously clean, the people are friendly, and the architecture couldn’t be more charming if it tried. I mean, look at this:
How cute is that? Now picture, if you can stand it, almost an entire city like that. Are you in a storybook? No, you’re in Copenhagen.
Copenhagen is one of the greenest cities on the planet, and one of the major ways they accomplish that is by bicycle travel. 32% of the population bike to work and the government has bent over backwards to make Copenhagen one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. In fact, one neighborhood is already entirely car-free. The city provides public bicycles which can be found throughout the downtown area and used with a returnable deposit of 20 kroner; you get your money back when you return the bike to one of many racks. Like this one:
So hop on a bike and see Copenhagen like a native.
Sure, there are attractions to see in Copenhagen, like Tivoli, the quaint little theme park smack in the middle of the city:
And of course, Copenhagen was the birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson, one of the fathers of children’s literature and the author of such classics as “The Little Mermaid”. (Hans Christian Anderson → Storybooks → Copenhagen. Told you so.) So you can go see the famous Little Mermaid statue:
But truth be told, Copenhagen is not a city that’s about A-list attractions, it’s more a place to experience as a whole, to wander around and mingle with the (very friendly, quite attractive) people and see what keeps getting the Danish listed as the world’s happiest, most contented people. And you’ll have plenty of time and daylight to do your gallivanting: during the summer the sun takes its sweet, sweet time going down. This was taken around 10 pm:
Great for sightseeing, a little rough on jetlag. But how often are you in Copenhagen?! Enjoy it!
Check back soon as we continue our charm tour around the Baltic and make a stop in Tallinn, Estonia!
