Your Favorite Off-The-Beaten-Track Things To Do in Copenhagen
 

I'm going to be studying in Copenhagen for a semester, and I'm wondering what interesting, unique and just plain weird things I should make sure to see. I've got the guidebooks, so I know about Tivoli Gardens, The Little Mermaid, etc. What do you love about Copenhagen that's not in the guidebooks?

Where to begin....

One of the best things about Copenhagen is that it is only an hour or so from many stunning places! I was there a couple of weeks ago and wow! It's great there! If you are into Lego....Copenhagen has its very own official Lego emporium:). Very fun place for kids and big kids...you can even build your own mini figures and buy them afterwards:). Found on the Strøget... If scenery and history is more your thing, may I suggest some very interesting day trips:

1: Roskilde - A lovely little town complete with Viking Ship Museum! At this museum they have cool activities like coin minting, make-your-own jewelry, dressing up as Vikings in traditional costume, and....if you are lucky, rowing out on the fjord in a replica Viking ship! Pretty fun!

2: Lejre and Gammel Lejre - Just ten minutes further than Roskilde is the tiny village of Lejre, where you will find Sagnlandet Lejre (an open-air experimental archeolical village ) just catch bus 266 from Lejre train station. The village takes you back in time with its Stone-age and Iron-age settlements. The beautiful countryside, fields, and far-away legends beckon to tourists who like to explore off the beaten track. Once you are done at Sagnlandet, exit the grounds and go to the left along a path through the woods. If you follow it straight, it soon leads you along an abandoned field-path, and the delights of rural Denmark begin to blow you away... In the fields lie many burial mounds, and as you near Gammel Lejre (for that is where the path leads) you can find the silhouettes of ancient halls (believed to be the site of the Heorot Hall in Beowulf) marked by hay bales. It is gorgeous, and make sure to cross the road and walk up to the stone-marked ship burial. It's a 4km walk back to Lejre station, but there is a cycle path that is quite easy to walk along. It's worth it....trust me:)

3: The Island of Bornholm. Take the Bornholmerbussen from near Copenhagen Central Station and have an exhilerating day or weekend on Bornholm. Just make sure that you check with the driver about when the last ferry is coming back to Copenhagen... I got caught short and had to pay for another fare to use the very late train-connection ferry. Bornholm itself is lovely and refreshing! Buy a bus pass and grab a bus timetable, then explore! Østelars Round Church is amazing! You can climb all the way up three levels into the high conical ceiling! The frescoes are very unique also. If you like medieval reconstructions, Bornholm's medieval centre is a twenty minute walk down the country highway:). If not, wait for the bus and explore somewhere else. The village of Gujheim is beautiful and picturesque, being situated right on the coast:). I insist upon a thorough exploration of Hammershaus though, the stunning castle ruin is breathtakingly beautiful upon the cliff tops of northern Bornholm! You could easily spend several hours there just existing amongst the glorious wildflowers and rugged coastal views! There is of course Rønne, Bornholm's capital, which has many delights of its own... I didn't have time for anything else, but believe me...Bornholm's beauty is truly worth discovering if you can afford it:)

Helsingør and Hillerød with their respective castles are both worth a Daytrip also, but I'll leave you with these ideas to consider and wish you a great semester in Denmark. P.S. They pronounce their "d" as a soft "th" or the Old English/Old Norse letter "eth". Never heard it pronounced as a "d" once, always the soft "th", so watch out for that....

I imagine it's in all the guidebooks now, so I'm filing this under the 'interesting' portion of your question. My favourite café in Copenhagen (and one of my favourites in the world) is the Laundromat cafe (http://www.thelaundromatcafe.com/en/...aundromat-cafe).

As you can probably guess, it's a combination laundrette and cafe but is so much more than the sum of its parts. A huge selection of books (arranged by the colour of their covers) you can browse at your leisure, decent food and an always interesting clientele.

What I love to do in Copenhagen is wander the streets completely aimlessly, discovering shops, cafés and restaurants on the way. It's probably for this reason that I can't give exact addresses to any of the 'off the beaten path' places I went to.

I can assure you that during my wanderings I met some hugely interesting people (and found some unique shops) that have created some really fond memories of Copenhagen.

One of these memories was being kissed full on the lips by a married, bearded, shipping executive (I'm also a bloke) in order to 'make my wife jealous'. He then spent the rest of the evening insisting on buying me whisky as 'England's practically Scotland'...

Reminiscence over, my advice would be to chuck the guidebooks away, get a basic tourist map and wander until you find your own off the beaten path gems.

When we visit Copenhagen, we like to visit Sophienholm, a lovely spot for a light lunch.

http://www.sophienholm.dk/side.asp?ID=50

We also like the northern suburbs, eg Charlottenlund, the area is very nice.

Cycling in forests is a nice thing to do, you can stumble upon interesting buildings or a lake etc. The area around Liseleje is very nice, my in laws used to have a summer cottage there. Gilleleje is a lovely fishing village, they smoke fish around the harbour. Short distance is a lighthouse, a nice walk around there and lovely views of the sea. Hornbaek is very nice place to walk around.

As for pronounciation of d in Danish, there are various ways. To pronounce hunde as in dog, it would sound like hune with a silent or a barely there d. If you say dejligt (meaning nice), the d is definitely pronounced as a D. If you say rødgrød med fløde (if you can!) I would say the d in fløde (cream) is more like a "th".

My tip for a relaxing and inspiring afternoon is Christiania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

Friday nights at Nyhavn -so much fun. Street musician, lots of young people about, great to people watch.

http://www.visitcopenhagen.com/see-and-do/nyhavn/382

take a train to Humelbaek and it's "Louisiana"..beautfuly situated mod museum. Have lunch, stroll the grounds etc. We took the train from Norreport, spent an hour or so at the castle in Hillerod, then went on after one change outside of Hlesingfors, to "Louisiana"..the ride back to Copenhagen is a short one from there.

I, too, enjoyed strolling around Christiana. And the Danish Resistance Museum will give you a good view of the Dane's underground role in WWII (it's very close to the Little Mermaid, which I heard was no longer there for some reason)

Enjoy your semester Jon, and try to find an hour here and there for s-t-u-d-y.

p.s. Jon...for a unique resto, go to Klimt, a few blocks from Norreport toward the lake. It's definitely a young folks hangout...and the food offerings are quite good. In our 70's at that time, we even went back twice...and they let us in!

Like tower I enjoyed moseying around Christiana, which I have done several times over its long existence - the Free City of Christiana that is one of Europe's only surviving 1970s communes - squatted on by hippies this was government military property but the squatters created their own city here and the Danish government, after many large protests of locals in support of the Christiana experiment (local authorities and cops stayed away for the most part and gave the commune autonomy in many matters)

anyway today Christiana is still around, even after many recent threats to close it down and built expensive condos or such in this prime seaside real estate right in the heart of Copenhagen - most famous for Pusher Street where folks openly sold cannabis - not sure how this facet is maintaining but the pubs allowed folks to smoke openly, etc.

anyway for getting off the beaten path in Christiana (said to be Copenhagen's 2nd most visited tourist place after Tivoli in things I've read) take the dirt path around the exterior, passing by some weird houses and workshops, etc.

Wow, thanks! Lots of great suggestions here.