I am back from Copenhagen and as everyone promised me it would be: it was indeed a lovely trip. Copenhagen is the perfect size for a three-day stay, not too big to do everything on foot and with just enough to do. It was good shopping for eldest and the weather was, despite being rather chilly, at least dry and sunny when it mattered.

We always try to do at least one VERY cheesy touristy thing and we opted for the boat ride through the harbour but this actually turned out to be the best thing on the whole trip! Well that and the amazing hamburgers at a place called Cock’s & Cows. Oh and something very noteworthy: I did not have one bad cup of coffee anywhere! Seriously, they do really good coffee. The Danes are super friendly and accommodating and as eldest remarked the minute we arrived ‘They are very well dressed!’.

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The day before we went there I did manage to spectacularly throw out my back whilst in the shower. And this was a category one: constant pain, not being able to sit and I was walking with a hunched back. Very attractive, highly inconvenient.  I am used to back pain though: I have had two herniated discs in the past, one of which I had surgically removed and the other one I was about to go under the knife for but I cancelled that surgery last-minute because it started to feel better. That hernia remained dormant so to speak but stopped giving me trouble and I can only hope it is not that same hernia that has just ‘woken up’.

Although cancelling the trip did cross my mind I decided to just load up on pain killers and go anyway. Murphy’s Law decided to tag along though and I had a very serious allergic reaction to the pain killers so I had to stop taking those. Travelling with a laid-back 16-year-old when in pain is actually not a bad thing: he did not object to all the walking (because as long as I walk I am fine, it is sitting that is basically hell) and did not mind staying in at the hotel in the evenings. The hotel we stayed in has a mini cinema which we rented and we actually watched Pulp Fiction: his first time ever and his comments during it were priceless. All in all: very good bonding time with a teenager.

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As you are reading this I am on my way for another trip, with my youngest this time, to the much less glamorous Dutch province of Drenthe to do some star-gazing in a mini-cabin on an estate somewhere. Unlike eldest he absolutely dislikes city trips: he does not like to walk, hates shopping (I do all of his clothes shopping online in fact) and can only take a museum a few times per year. Fingers crossed for clear skies tonight!

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Eldest and I stayed at Hotel SP34 which has nicely appointed rooms, a cool lobby and very friendly staff

We had a very yummy lunch at Granola in Vesterbro, ate amazing hamburgers twice at the aforementioned Cock’s & Cows and had a perfect dinner at Italiano (we actually loved the very cheesy decor, shouting wait staff and live music)

We visited Design Museum Denmark, which was excellent, and Nationalmuseet, which I do not particularly recommend: it was overheated, crowded with schoolclasses and contained just way too many vases, flints and bones…but if you are into that sort of thing it is probably heaven

Make sure to bring your comfy shoes because Copenhagen is excellent to do on foot and as always I found just walking around and looking much more fun to do than the planned stuff anyway. I wanted to rent bikes for one day but deciced against that due to my back pain. That said, from what I could tell Copenhagen is perfect for biking especially in nice weather!