After 3 weeks in Sweden, which was at least one week longer than originally planned, we hopped on a train from Malmo (in southeast Sweden) to Copenhagen, Denmark. We’d heard that most trains in Sweden don’t take bikes, but this wasn’t the case for us: it proved to be no problem to show up at the train station and have tickets for the next train to Copenhagen, a regional train that made a few stops along the way, but was pure high-speed amazement to people who had only been traveling by bike for almost a month.
We hadn’t been in a moving vehicle since leaving the States and being on a train threw me off: I had an intense feeling that we were leaving something behind and moving much too fast to ever get it back.
When we arrived in Copenhagen, Chris and I were overwhelmed. It was late in the day (our day started with catching a ferry off an island before we even made it to the train station) and we hadn’t been in a big city since our first week, in Stockholm. I’ve backpacked through European cities before, in my early 20’s, but big-city train stations are more difficult to navigate with 3 children and 4 bikes in tow. I was constantly worried that the kids would get lost or stuck, leave something behind or get in the way of other travelers, all more competent-looking than us.
Once we got out of the station and onto the street, stepping right in front of the famous carnival rides at Tivoli Gardens, we realized we were crazy to think we’d just bike to the nearest campsite. We searched, instead, for the closest hostel, finding several mixed in on the same blocks as fancy, high-rise hotels.
Our discovery of The Urban House blew so many of my preconceptions out of the water. It was easily the biggest hostel I’ve ever seen, a sum of every converted multi-floor building on an entire (large) city block. We saw a sign establishing it’s rank as one of the “Top Ten Large Hostels in Europe.” The ground floor consisted of a bar and restaurant (with a stage for musical performances), a front lounge with sofas, a laundry room, a huge shared kitchen, a huge shared dining room, another lounge with pool tables, a theater room, a library, and a “hangover room,” with floor cushions and “quiet” signs.
It really was one big urban house.
My American-ness came out at the reservation counter. As I took in a sign that read “Absolutely no drugs inside” and noted the gentleman’s club across the street, the Kakadu, as well as the carefree and vibrant youth of Europe at the bar, the air thick with all things hip and sexy, I asked, “Is this place OK for kids?”
The guy at the counter laughed at my question. “Of course,” he said. One of his co-workers hid a bemused grin and another looked as though my question was endearing. I looked a little closer and realized there were several families coming and going, as well as several solo travelers in their retirement years, carrying backpacks like everyone else, but with more sensible shoes.
It was a freeing moment. Especially during our more stressful encounters, I’ve wondered where I’m landing on the spectrum of responsible parenting. Traveling already has a way of making me feel more uninhibited than I do back home, but traveling with kids in Europe has brought about a whole new freedom, as these countries seem to be WAY less concerned with parenting–as a verb–than what I’m used to back home, when I feel I’m constantly under the radar of perceived Judgy-McJudgersons.
There are plenty of books and articles and analysis tracking the difference between American parents and our European counterparts, so I won’t go into them here, but I’ve read a lot about it and am seeing the differences play out in ways I love.
Once we got to our room, a simple, clean space consisting of a small bathroom and 3 sets of bunk beds (we paid by bed and reserved the final empty bed so that we could have the room to ourselves), we fielded questions about the Kakadu across the street (our 7-year-old has now learned, a bit prematurely in my opinion, the difference between a stripper and a prostitute) and then went downstairs for burgers, beers, and live music.
Between being behind in our schedule and the expenses of a city, we decided we’d only spend a day and another night in Copenhagen and were determined to make the most of it. Chris put together a 9-mile loop through the city for the next day, marking possible stops along the way.
It was one of the many times we’ve had to decide between what the kids want to do and what the adults want to do. The kids, predictably, wanted to spend the day at Tivoli Gardens and the neighboring toy store. Chris and I repeated to them, in vain, the question: “Don’t you want to see and do things unique to this city? We can go on roller coasters back home.”
We made the executive decision to skip Tivoli for an art museum, which resulted in some short-lived pouting but this whole trip is an extreme practice in compromise and decision-making.
After the museum, we were on the hunt for good food. With the exception of a few stand-out meals, the food in Sweden had been quite bad. We’d been finding mostly greasy pizza, stale kebabs, fries and mayo with everything, and rounded it out with simple camp cooking–pasta and jarred sauce. Copenhagen’s made news the past few years with its efforts to reinvent Scandinavian cuisine, so we were hopeful some of the innovation in the Michelin-rated restaurants has trickled down to the sidewalk cafes. I’ll let the picture explain: we weren’t disappointed.
After lunch (which we mainly spent by commenting on how well-dressed everyone was who walked by) we headed to Christiania. Click on the link for more info, but a summary: Christiania is a huge hippie neighborhood within Copenhagen’s city limits that operates outside of Danish law. It began with squatters on a military base in the 1970’s and now has about 900 residents. Cars are not allowed. Pot is bought and sold freely. Art and graffiti cover every square inch. Residents use the food grown in gardens in their (mostly vegan) cafes. We visited on a Saturday, when people were selling beer out of tents, kids ran through barefoot, and the streets were packed. The smell of marijuana was so thick, one of the boys was getting a headache, so we took off.
Our next stop was Nyvahn, the canal district. Right when we got to the colorful buildings, the previously sunny sky darkened and the rain began to come down in sheets. I pointed to a corner ice cream shop: “Let’s duck in there and wait it out.”
We were not the only ones with this idea:
I have never seen anything like it: dozens of people, shoulder to shoulder, happily licking ice cream that, 10 minutes prior, they’d had no intention of consuming. The rain stopped as quickly and unexpectedly as it started and the ice cream shop cleared out.
It was on the canal that I realized how much fun all theses Danes were having. There was a giddiness, a silliness in the air that reminded me of game day in a university town, only bigger. It was early afternoon, but the outdoor bars and cafes were packed. There were groups of 20-somethings on the canal, drinking and laughing in rented boats with circular seating called “Friend Ships.” Everyone not on the water was on foot or bike. We saw more than one bachelorette–type party of women, dressed in colorful clothes and tutus, parading through the streets.
The last stop before looping back was to see The Little Mermaid statue, which was the most crowded tourist stop we’d seen that day but one of my favorites:
The food at our hostel restaurant had been so good, we decided to head back “home” for dinner and call it a night. The kids have been unnervingly comfortable wherever we’ve stayed. They make themselves at home–exploring, wondering, kicking back–whether we’re at a campsite, a city hostel, a country B-n-B, or nice hotel. When we need shelter (usually because of rain), we land at the nearest place, which has ranged from being barely tolerable to amazingly fancy…without the price range you’d expect in the states…
We left Copenhagen the next morning and I’ve never been so regretful to leave a place. Maybe we should have stayed longer, but then the timing would not have worked to experience what has come next…this bike trip is teaching us that, as with life, there are no right answers, just tiny decisions you make along the way that become your delicate reality, floating in the ether.
But we do know that we want to experience Copenhagen again.
Summer on Bikes 