Travelling Fletchers

Our apartment is on the ground floor of a six-storey building – no lugging bags up endless stairs. It’s neatly placed equidistant between two metro stations, giving us options each time we head out to explore. This is also the first time we’ve stayed somewhere with a bed to convert – a little novelty for us.

It isn’t a studio either, which makes it feel more spacious, and even comes with a small study tucked under the stairs. I imagine students make this their home during term time, and we’re lucky to be here in the quieter spell before they return.

Over 20,000 steps have been clocked up by each of us today – no wonder our feet are tired. Our average won’t dip though, as the next couple of days will be spent sitting back and watching the world go by on the train.

We picked up the hop-on hop-off bus again today, but this time followed a different route. The highlight was pausing at the street food area in Copenhagen – the perfect spot to graze, rest and soak up the atmosphere. This was a sharp contrast to the street food in Oslo. The concept was the same, but here every corner of the world was represented – the English offering was fish and chips, alongside Kurdish dishes, Mexican, American and even Canadian food. All of it served from converted cargo containers, perfectly in line with the Danish ethos of reuse. The backdrop was the city’s recycling centre, and diners could eat alfresco if they weren’t too distracted by the bungee jumpers leaping overhead.

We ate with a view across the docklands, watching the cruise ships that had docked for the day and the seaplanes taking off and landing on the water.

The kids were keen to visit the Lego store – fitting, given Denmark is the home of Lego. Tempting as it was to go wild, baggage limits meant souvenirs had to be small and preferably flat. In the end, keyrings and a couple of Lego characters won the day – just the right size to squeeze into our bags without breaking the zips.

We ended our evening at Tivoli Gardens – one of Copenhagen’s top attractions and a magical way to round off the day. I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it, but it’s fair to admit that it didn’t quite live up to my expectations, or more accurately, my memories of it. Places change, progress moves on, and over time the gardens have been reduced. The old wooden rides that once gave Tivoli its unique charm have been replaced with towering steel roller coasters for the thrill seekers. The lakes are now hemmed in by shops with inflated prices, all on top of the entrance fee, and at the heart of it all is a grand concert stage with music loud enough for the whole city to hear.

I remember it differently – a park of old-style rides and soft twinkling lights in the evening. Maybe it’s just that I’ve grown up and the magic doesn’t quite sparkle the same way. But I think I’ll choose to hold on to the memories of Tivoli as it once was, if it’s all the same. That being said, it didn’t spoil the evening for the others, who were seeing Tivoli for the first time. We ended the night watching what I’m fairly sure was a Pierrot and Harlequin performance – which, without any context, only made it feel more bizarre than classic. Still, at least there was no language barrier to get in the way.