Now, I don’t consider myself an expert on things to do in Copenhagen as we were only there for a few days but I thought I’d show you a few of the things I got up to that I thought are worth recommending.
First off, it’s entertaining enough just to wander around the streets, as it always is in a new city, but Copenhagen is absolutely beautiful with it’s pretty canals, bright, colourful houses, fantastically dressed residents and street art on every corner.
The main tourist strip of the city is Nyhavn, which is pretty much the only picture that shows up in Google if you type in Copenhagen. There’s no particular ‘attraction’ there, it’s just that the brightly painted houses along the canal make for some pretty pictures, it’s also lined with restaurants so it’s a fantastic place to go for dinner.
I didn’t get time to take a canal tour but if I ever go back then it’s definitely something I’d try and squeeze in. While we were in the city centre we visited the Round Tower, which is used as an observatory and offers some lovely views of the city.
(that big bridge you can see in the distance is the bridge to Sweden!)
This next one is a bit of an odd thing to recommend but we stumbled upon it accidentally as it’s right by the great shopping street I talked about it my last post. It’s a graveyard, but a gorgeous one full of trees and flowers. It’s also home to the grave of Hans Christian Andersen. It’s very lovely and peaceful.
I had an afternoon to myself one day so I decided to grab the subway over to the zoo. I had so much fun! I love zoos and Copenhagen has a fantastic one. I’ve been to quite a few around the world and it’s not often you find a zoo that has elephants and polar bears. The elephant enclosure is amazing. There’s a huge indoor centre where you can get within arms length of the elephants (no glass!) and an enormous outdoor playground which backs onto Frederiksberg park so people can sit having their lunch outside the zoo and watch the elephants playing! They’re also opening a new bit later this year to house the polar bears which looks like it’s going to be incredible. The drawings I saw showed a tunnel with polar bears swimming all around – you can see them here. The hippo enclosure was also amazing, with a large outdoor area where you can watch them being fed as well as a huge glass indoor tank so you can watch them swimming about. (I’ve just read on Wikipedia that the zoo is one of the oldest in Europe – it opened in 1859! Apparently it’s also the only zoo outside of Australia to have Tasmanian Devils!)
I didn’t take many pictures as my husband had the camera for work reasons so there are only a few iPhone snaps.
Last but not least is probably the most popular attraction in the city, the Tivoli gardens and amusement park which opened in 1843, making it the second oldest amusement park in the world. It’s kind of strange, it’s not like theme parks we have here like Thorpe Park or Alton Towers. Basically, you pay a small entrance fee which just gets you in and you can wander around the gardens and look around all you like and then you can pay for each ride separately, or you can buy an ‘all-inclusive’ ticket which gives you access to all the rides. There’s also an aquarium and a theatre there and tons of restaurants. (I didn’t take any photos of the rides as we were always stood a bit too close to get any good shots)
If you’re going to Copenhagen for a short visit, I would definitely recommend buying a Copenhagen Card as this gets you free (multiple) entry to over 65 attractions and free transport around the city (including to/from the airport!). One adult card also covers 2 children aged 0-9 years. They come in 3 different time frames, 24hr, 72hr and 120hr and cost £27, £51 and £75 respectively and are about half that price for children aged 10-15 so they are well worth it.