Each year we end up going somewhere different for our summer holiday. We’d look at a couple of ideas but still wasn’t sure where we wanted to go. When Chris asked me and I said I didn’t know, I showed a map of Europe to Jaxon and got him to pick. Originally he picked Oslo but in the end, we settled on Copenhagen. So here we go, our Danish adventure.
Day Two started with trying to find breakfast. There was the option to have breakfast in the hotel but it was kind of pricey per head (we’d come to realise everything is a bit pricier than the UK anyway!).
We headed to the 7-Eleven (which was our corner shop of sorts). We were able to get breakfast which was about 70-80DKK in the end so about £7-9 for all three of us. We’d look at the price of things we knew from home. For instance, 2 bottles of Coke Zero (500ml) were on offer at 36DKK. That’s about £4.50ish depending on the currency exchange. Two bottles that size at our local supermarket in the UK is around £2 maybe?
Following breakfast, we needed to get some wet wipes so we found a pharmacist (Apotek). The packet of baby wipes worked out at about £3 – I think that’s more than even a packet of named brand wipes in the UK. We’ll note for us go to Lidl for wipes too if we need them (or pack them before we leave the UK). Another thing we had to navigate was that although we just wanted to pay, we still needed to take a number and wait our turn.
Our first attraction of the day was Den Blå Planet. There’s a courtesy bus that runs from right outside Central Station to the front door of the Aquarium and you get a nice tour of the city on the way. While we were on this trip we found that Netto and Lidl are both here in Copenhagen and that maybe one of them would be cheaper (Lidl won this in the end).
We spent around two hours in the aquarium. I’m sure we could have spent more but Jaxon was still feeling the effects of the very late night and so was throwing a strop at every opportunity when he didn’t get his way.
There were lots to see both inside and outside the Aquarium. In the first two areas, there were lots of smaller tanks with smaller fishes and other creatures to look at too. In the third area, it was a rainforest area with tanks of tropical fishes. In one tank there were Piranhas and opposite were these really big fish. They were easily the same length as Jaxon and about double or triple his width.
Following Den Bla Planet, we walked to the metro station at Kastrup St and took the metro to Kongens Nytorv. We got lunch at Magasin du Nord (Department Store). We ended up with fresh bread from the bakery (which I think was an Ole and Steen concession) along with sliced cheese from the food hall/supermarket bit. (When we were in France, we found that sliced bread and presliced cheese or ham was often a cheaper way to feed us a quick lunch than buying premade sandwiches).
There was a bit of a breeze but we sat outside and ate our lunch while watching the world go by. We also looked at the buildings that were all dressed up ready for Copenhagen Pride which was the Saturday we were in the city. Next up we headed to Kastellet and Den Lille Havfrue (The Little Mermaid). We took the bus again which meant we got to see more of the city that we would have missed on the metro, which was lovely.
I was excited to see The Little Mermaid and knew it has quite of a lot of significance to the city of Copenhagen, both historical and political. It did, however, feel almost anti-climatic. We’d walked about a mile from the bus stop, through Kastellet to find her and then that was it. Maybe I was tired or something but it felt a bit like “Oh and that’s it?”. At this point, Jaxon was desperate to play Hide and Seek, so I hid behind a tree – very obvious and easy to spot but I could still see him and he got to play which helped him focus again on where we were going next.
At this point my plans ran out, the challenge with exploring with Jaxon is knowing when enough is enough and we just need to go back to the hotel and chill.
Chris came up with our next stop. We headed to the Guinness World Records Museum. Outside the Museum, there is a statue/mannequin of Robert Wadlow who holds the record of being the world’s tallest man ever at 8ft 11.1 inches (that’s 272cm!) – the current tallest living man is 8ft 2.8 inches. Even with Jaxon sat on Chris’s shoulders they were still only up to Statue Robert’s chest. (Chris’s shoulder was in line with Statue Robert’s hip!).
We had good fun exploring various exhibits and hands-on bits you could take part in. After this, we headed back to the hotel to relax as we were all getting tired and feeling it from our long day the day before. We attempted to find something for Jaxon to watch and in the end settled on what looked like the Danish equivalent of CBBC.
You can see the video of our adventure here.
