Copenhagen changed the way I travel.
Don’t get me wrong - there is no right or wrong way to do it - it’s just that until I visited Copenhagen I thought I had a particular travel identity.
Before my spontaneous first visit in 2015 I was a country collector. From long weekends city-blitzing to 12 week overland epics rattling through 10 countries - I was younger and had the energy for such quantitative box-ticking. Copenhagen changed all that. Maybe I was older and wiser. Maybe I was ready to switch to slower travel; a richer, more qualitative experience. Cue the rise of repeat visits.
When it comes to cities I’m an unashamed flâneur. I pick a part of the city to start in and then just follow my nose - letting curiosity get the better of me and without a particular plan. Being honest - these days picking a starting point is built around potential bakery and independent coffee stops. (These days the box-ticking is a lower-key quest in search of the perfect kanel snegl or cardamom bun. I do consider myself an afficionado of Copenhagen bakeries so do let me know in the comments if you’d like to take a virtual tour with me sometime.)
As a serial explorer I’ve seen my fair share of religious buildings. I never thought I would refer to a church visit as adrenaline-fuelled - but the baroque Church of Our Saviour provides just that experience.
As you near the church it dawns that the golden spiral snaking up the black spire is ergonomic like everything else in Denmark. The serpentine adornment doubles up as a helical hand rail for visitors to climb the spire externally. Getting closer you start to see the movement of humans trailing upwards like orderly ants to an aerial ant hill. Suffice to say the inward battle of basophobia and internal-competitiveness was as narrowly won as the tapering copper steps. Navigating those in descent, keeping a firm grip on my camera and enjoying the view couldn’t all happen at the same time.
Over the course of several visits I’ve come to appreciate the Danish approach to design. Yes, the chairs and ceramics and hyggelig comforts are celebrated and covetable and I never have enough space in my luggage to max out on minimalism. But for me - and the Danes, it seems - it’s not just about design but about the entire user experience.
If you nosey around the institutional Laundromat Cafes you’ll find coin-operated laundrette machines - the original cafe was borne out of extending Danish hospitality to neighbours needing to do some laundry. Metro stations are spacious, intuitive and designed with the user in mind and with the new Cityringen line, the majority of Copenhagen city folk are within 600 metres of an unobtrusive metro stop. Immersive outdoor exhibitions pop up year-round for sensory and cultural enrichment.
With a similar climate to Scotland, Denmark is also plagued by long, wet winters and incessant maritime winds. The difference in Copenhagen seems to be that they’ve designed their way to making spending time outdoors more pleasurable - even if the weather doesn’t play nice. Harbour baths in Islands Brygge enable open air swimming in the heart of the city, whilst hardy open water swimmers flock to the sneglen at Amager Strand. Like the pastry swirls of the same name, the snegl (snail) provides shelter for brave winter swimmers.
For now, the thing I’ll miss the most is joining Danish friends in a post-work supermarket beer sitting on the pier wall. For all the design and dissecting what makes an optimal human experience - sometimes it’s the simplest, littlest things.
For many reasons I won’t be returning to Copenhagen any time soon but as soon as it’s safely allowed I’ll be keeping up the sunset pier beer tradition. If there’s anything to be learned about life lately is that there’s always time to slow down and appreciate the things most important to us. And if there’s something that we want to change, learn from the Danes and design your way towards it.
