Location Guide: Copenhagen
Curated by Megan Arizmendi & Caroline Vanstrom
Hi! We are Caro & Megs, best friends living on the west and east coast respectively, who make a long distance friendship work through making the most of long weekends and google flight alerts to fun new places. This past spring we spent 72 hours in the incredible city of Copenhagen, Denmark. Here are some of the highlights!
Planning & Booking
The Flight
If you’re coming from the states, the SAS direct flights from JFK or LAX is great!
We spontaneously booked this trip when we were missing each other and decided to book in the off season (mid-March). The great thing about March is that it was more affordable, it’s on the tailend of Winter so it wasn’t terribly cold/dark (it’s actually so beautiful this time of year), and we avoided crowds. That being said, the locals kept telling us to come back in summer and rave about that being the best time of the year to visit.
Packing for an overnight flight and weekend trip:
A tote and carry on (72 hours means no checked bag!)
Reusable water bottle
Sleep mask and eye drops (we love Drowsy sleep masks)
A deep moisturizer like this one from Alpyn
Comfy sweater (+ coat during winter = the perfect blanket when in economy like us 🙂)
A sleeping aid of somesort (our go tos are Advil PM or ZZquil)
Accommodations
There are so many beautiful hotel and airbnb options. We decided to stay at the boutique hotel Villa Copenhagen. It’s such a lovely property right next to the train station and has a heated rooftop pool, sauna, comfy beds, the dreamiest soaps/shampoos from SKANDINAVISK, and a cute lobby complete with a full bar and restaurant, Rug Bakery, and the design store Passagen. We’d also recommend Coco Hotel, Kaj Hotel (a houseboat!) or any of the beautiful airbnbs available.
Getting Around the City
The biggest thing to note is that due to national taxi laws, Uber is not available in Denmark. Go ahead and download the Dantaxi app and the Dot app for all forms of public transit. Once we arrived in the city, we pretty much walked everywhere, and the bus, metro and bikes are all great options too. It’s a very international city and we noticed a lot of EU citizens who don’t speak Danish have moved here so English is common (but Tak - Thank you or skål - cheers are fun words to know).
The Spots!
Coffee / Bakeries
Lille Bakery - Go for the bread & butter and stay for the gorgeous natural light and wonderful staff. We went right before La Banchina - they are walkable from one another!
Rug Bakery - We are partial to Rug because they got us caffeinated and fought our jet lag each morning since it’s located in Villa Copenhagen where we stayed. You can’t go wrong with any of their pastries on offer.
Orsa Coffee - We loved it so much we went twice. Orsa is in Vesterbro close to our hotel and we’ve been dreaming about their bun, butter & cheese specifically since we got home. Great yogurt, overnight oats, and banana bread too.
Kafferiet - Such a cozy spot with great coffee. We especially loved their Kongens Have location by the park.
People love Hart Bakery too. They have a couple different locations we didn’t make it to but the bread and pastries all look incredible.
Restaurants
Atelier September - A MUST! We didn’t want to leave AS and even bought the chef’s beautiful cookbook. There are a few locations open for breakfast and lunch only and we went to the one at Kronprinsessegade 62. We got the “avocadomad” and a kale pesto savory porridge.
La Banchina - Another must while in Copenhagen. We ended up having just beer and wine here after eating the large loaf from Lille but the setting is gorgeous and the food all looked fantastic.
Den Vandrette - This nice restaurant/wine bar is found just steps from the main harbor you see photographed by most people who go to Copenhagen, and it ended up being the best place to have our last dinner in the city. They have a wine cellar you go in to pick your bottle of wine and have great recommendations for food - get the khachapuri!
Barabba - Another restaurant/wine bar we loved and actually indulged in their tasting menu with a great bottle of natural wine. Service was incredible - they even let us sub out a dish and brought us espresso martinis since we skipped a course. The perfect dessert we didn’t even ask for!
Kaby’s - a great central cafe and restaurant for any hour of the day!
Drinks
Mikkeller Cellar Bar in Vesterbro - We also visited this lovely spot more than once and bought the glasses photoed here to take home with us. Such great beer (Hazy Hop Hazy IPA was our fave) and branding. They have tasting rooms around the world but this location was charming.
Two Socks Gin - A gin bar in Vesterbro with hundreds of gins and great cheese boards. They made us a very creative negroni too using two contrasting vermouths in lieu of campari.
Pompette - A nice (& affordable!) natural wine bar in Nørrebro. We got a glass of their orange and then their red and loved both. Got a side of cheese and chorizo as well that were delicious.
Galleries & Shops
Shrig shop - A must if you are a fan of David Shrigley. We also stopped by Galleri Nicolai Wallner after the staff at the shop recommended it - The current Shrigley exhibition.
CAN Family - A record store, art gallery and vintage clothing shop all in one owned by a lovely husband and wife duo.
Thiemers magasin - A great book store right by Shirg Shop and CAN. They have a nice English language section in the bookstore too.
Nikolaj Art Gallery - Very cool Contemporary art museum housed in a converted church, with a restaurant, bookshop & free weekly tours.
Danze maze - An amazing dance studio in Copenhagen that offers a wide range of classes. Specifically check out the Monday morning Gaga. People class from Kari Vig Peterson and loved.
Shutter Bug for film cameras and film if yours happens to break like Caro’s did!
Fotogrfisk Center - This gallery sadly wasn’t open the weekend days but it looked amazing and recently they showed work of Tine Bek - a photographer we learned about on the trip and fell in love with!
Our #1 Recommendation: Sauna Gus with Svala at La Banchina
We booked in advance and were a part of a wonderful group of six people. An icelandic woman Svala bought this Sauna about a year ago and holds hour sessions in which you sauna with various essential oils for 12-15 minutes and then cold plunge, switching off for 3 rounds. We loved the experience and had lots of water to rehydrate after, along with a happy hour drink of choice at La Banchina while reading until sunset!
Lastly, never forget that Friends or Fleabag can always be played late into the evening to help with jet lag!
Hope you can visit this incredible city soon! We know we’ll be back.
Xoxo,
Caro and Megs