Croatia

We all went on holiday to Croatia. If ever there was a situation where pictures spoke louder than words, then this was it.

So here you go.

Copenhagen

“Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town”

I’ve never been to Denmark before. I’ve never been this far north before. Will it be cold? Will they all be tall and thin? Will they all speak better English than I do? Will Radiohead do good? So many questions, and we’d not even left Heathrow. We’re catching an evening flight, so we’ll have all Friday to explore the city before the gig on Saturday and flying back home on Sunday.

The first person to speak to us in Copenhagen is the guy at passport control. The second, our taxi driver. The third, a black prostitute hanging around outside our hotel – the centrally located Comfort Inn Europa. “Hello boys!” she calls to us as we unload our baggage. She’s ignored. She looks like she can handle it. After checking in, we crash. It’s gone midnight and it’s been an exhausting few hours.

Friday morning and we awake to a brilliantly sunny day. We leave the hotel after choosing to skip breakfast electing to find some in the town instead. Copenhagen is quiet at this time of day. It’s barely 10 o’clock, and shops haven’t really opened up yet. There’s hardly anyone about in the main square, and the only form of breakfast we can find is in the form of Baressa – Denmark’s answer to Starbucks (whose actual absence from the city is noted, somewhat ambivalently). Choosing to depart from the path up Stroget – Copenhagen’s shopping district – that we’d unconciously taken, we stumble across some university buildings and the Round Tower. The Round Tower, is basically that. It’s a big round tower on one end of a church. Inside, is a steepless spiral walkway – a steady gradient until the top from where the views over the city are magnificent.

We are enticed into a shop called Tiger. I can’t remember why now, but inside it can best be described as a cross between Poundland and Muji. It’s really quite great and tacky in equal proportions selling a bizarre range of goods as diverse as make up, herbs, dodgy dvd-only films, to semi-decent kitchenware. If there was a Tiger in London, I should imagine it’d be quite popular.

Swans. Sortendams So had lots of Swans. As we wandered along the bank of the man made lake – a detour on the way to the Statens Museum for Kunst art gallery – they seems to follow us. Statens Museum for Kunst is a great building – a combination of new and old architecture – the two buildings literally combine in a central atrium. It’s quite nice, as galleries go, and our visit was made even better by the great meal at the cafe. Peugot salt and pepper mills, and a really friendly waiter who seems distraught when we tell him the reason for our trip. Seems like the Radiohead gig is a hot ticket.

The afternoon we wander up to Kastellet – which are army barracks. I thought it meant castle, so was a little bit disappointed. There was a nice windmill there though, and a wedding was taking place of one of the army boys. An organ grinder was providing the entertainment. He didn’t have a monkey.

Onward to the Little mermaid. There wasn’t much to see or say about it, really. It’s a small bit of metal perched on a rock. It’s really nothing special. So we take the opportunity to get an ice cream, before getting on the train back to Central Station – conveniently next door to our hotel. After freshening up, we head up to the canel – where we do as the locals are doing – and grab some beer and crips from the Seven Eleven (Spar, Alldays, etc) and dangle our feet over the canalside. My choice of 10.?% viking beer doesn’t go down well, so I revert to the far tastier Turok. Then it’s on to Nyhavn, where we finally manage to stick into steak and prawn skewers. Tom wanted to go to the Jailhouse – a themed bar where the bar staff are ‘dressed’ in uniform, and fake prison bars partion the drinking area. It was just all a bit too naff/seedy, really. So we left.

Saturday, and it’s Baressa for breakfast again, before spending a bit more time in Stroget and it’s huge Bodum store. By now, we’re getting used to the fact that everyone speaks English, and the trouble is that “Hi” is the same in English and Danish, so your preferred language isn’t always obvious from the first thing you say. Anyway… the intersting thing was a street performer – his act was entirely in English – apart from when he was addressing his young Danish helper plucked from the audience – who had obviously not been through English lessons.

We find ourselves in Nyhavn again. The thing about this city, is that everything is so close together. And there are hardly any slopes, which makes for a lot of cyclists. We pick up a couple of the bikes on the ‘free’ bike scheme, which works in the same way a shopping trolley works at the super market, and cycle down to Christiana, and around. Christiana is a big social experient, started about 30 years ago when a load of hippies reclaimed some derelict land and workhouses. It feels a lot like Camden. Or the market place at Glastonbury festival.

We meet up with Nikolaj and have a few beers on a barge bar, before catching the Metro back to the hotel for a quick shower and heading out to see Radiohead.

They were ace.

Sunday breakfast sees our final trip to Baressa before going to the Design centre, with a couple of fun exhibitions. Then it’s across the road to Tivoli – a theme park in the middle of the city – where a ride on a rollercoaster awaits. Lunch is Snorrebrod, which it topped off with more cycling to try and fit in a final bout of sight seeing. Making it down to the harbour wall – pretty close to where we were for the Little Mermaid – Tom catches sight of a seal and I manage a quick snap before it darts off. Then it’s a whistle-stop bike ride back to the city centre, where we drop off the bikes and I manage to get my must-have souvenir – a hairy viking.

I liked Copenhagen a lot. I think I’ll go back there sometime…