The Silent Killer.

It’s 5am at Gatwick airport and Jamie and I are queuing at security when we lay eyes on a stunning tall blond lass wearing a very snazzy red dress. We naturally assumed (hoped!) that she would be on our plane. She was. I have always maintained that the Scandinavians are beautiful people and we weren’t to be disappointed as the unknown lady proved before we had even set foot on her home soil.

So why Copenhagen!? Well my old travel buddy off of South America, Jamie and I wanted an excuse to get on a plane. We also wanted to see the Northern lights and I happened to know someone in Copenhagen. So off we went. Two out of three isn’t bad bearing in mind Copenhagen is pretty much in line with Manchester so no chance of Northern Lights. It is a beautiful city, truly stunning. We believe that cyclisim has a lot to do with this. Cyclisim is a new word I have developed to describe people (by which I mean ladies) who ride bikes around Copenhagen and as a consequence (we assume) keep extremely fit and, beautiful. Copenhagen isn’t just the capital of Denmark, it’s also the world capital of beautiful ladies. But, unlike Prague where the women are likely to be models or strippers, Danish ladies appear to be genuine normal girl next door lass’s. I have no proof to back up these claims as obviously I didn’t talk to many of them but, going on past experiences of travelling with Danish folk in the past, I know they are a right good laugh! Although thinking about it, we rented an apartment which belonged to two young Danish Ladies and they were both beautiful and genuine. They even invited us to a party which unfortunately we failed to attend! So there it is, proof.

I can’t remember how many times I crossed a road and nearly died in Copenhagen. It made the streets of Hanoi feel safe! The problem was I would step off the pavement in an attempt to cross the road and then all of a sudden Jamie would be pulling me out of the way of an angry cyclist hurtling towards me. You see Copenhagen has roads and then along each side of the road it has dedicated cycle lanes, but they’re not lanes, they are cycle super highways. The streets are full of cyclists thanks to amazing infrastructure. Strange though how they haven’t developed a bell to worn naive English tourists. I watched BBC news the other day and heard how cyclists kept getting killed in London which isn’t any surprise really as British cycle lanes compared to Danish ones is like comparing the size of Kate Moss to Dawn French.

So what to do in Copenhagen? Well at the end of the day it’s just another city with the usual city stuff, including bars! Thanks to our local friend Ida we spent two of our three nights drinking till sun rise. A consequence of this is we spent one of our days in bed suffering but I feel it can be justified in that we were out with the locals experiencing the local way of living, at night anyway. One of the bars we were at were showing a computer gaming world championship thing on the telly. Imagine a room full of Leonards and Sheldons and you will get the picture!

We did get some sightseeing done. We had heard a lot about a mermaid that frequents the shores of Copenhagen and so we made the effort to walk across town and meet her. It was truly uninteresting, worth a visit as always even if it’s just to be amused by the fact that something so little is such an attraction. Basically it was a gift to Copenhagen exactly 100 years ago and is the mermaid from Hans Christians ‘The Little Mermaid’ who was Danish. Another attraction there was no doubt we had to see was a polar bar at the zoo, why else would you go to the zoo? We paid up, filled up on an amazing Danish pork sandwich in the cafe and then headed straight to the big fluffy white beast. And big he was. As soon as I laid eyes on the polar bear I was amazed at how massive they are, their paws are gigantic. I have also heard they are one of only a few animals on earth that actively hunt humans! As with most zoo’s though this bear wasn’t a happy chappy, pacing backwards and forwards as animals under stress tend to do. I always question the ethics of zoos but there is no doubt that as we continue to destroy natural habitats, zoos will become more and more important. Fantastically I now need to get to the Arctic and see polar bears in the wild! I suppose the final major highlight was the Carlsberg factory. Not as fancy as the Heineken one but worth a visit nonetheless and the bar was a super place to have a cheeky few post tour beers. We also made it to a fantastic little music venue to see the British band, Daughter perform which was very enjoyable!

No doubt a random weekend away but that’s exactly what is required when out and about exploring the world! Hopefully Copenhagen lay the foundations and set the standard for a few more random long weekends across Europe. It’s easy to forget that about 25% of the worlds countries are within four hours flying time from London.

Let I not forget a big thanks to my wingman Mr J.Quick who allowed me to use his photos for the blog. Thinking about it he may now be dead as shortly after Copenhagen he headed off to visit Chernobyl. Apparently it’s just wonderful at this time of year.