Copenhagen, Denmark: The Happiest City in the World

We made it to Scandinavia! I have been looking forward to this part of our trip for a LONG time. You always read about how this part of the world is ranked the most happy and we wanted to experience it for ourselves.

I will say it was refreshing to be in a country that did not have as much bad memories from the recent wars. Not that Denmark wasn’t affected by the war, but it definitely was not impacted as badly as many of the other countries we’ve recently been to.

One of the first things we noticed being in Copenhagen is there are bikes EVERYWHERE!

And nobody locks their bikes! Everyone leaves their bikes leaning on buildings, set on a bike rack, out in front of their house and no one steals them. I don’t know about where you’re from but in Chicago you can use two locks and your bike could still get stolen.

We quickly learned why everyone bikes everywhere. SALES TAX ON CARS IS 150%!!! That means if you buy a $50,000 car it will actually cost you $125,000!

So even in the cold of winter people will still bike everywhere. People use box bikes as their family cars to haul everything around, including people and pets.

Copenhagen is a beautiful, clean, and very safe city. One of the most recognizable areas is Nyhavn with all the colorful buildings right on the water.

Nyhavn means “new harbor” and used to be the red light district since the sailors would dock in the harbor.

The city decided to clean it up in 1960- however they didn’t take into account that prostitutes aren’t scared of brightly colored buildings. So it took a little longer until this became a tourist spot.

Hans Christian Anderson is one of the most famous Danish people. I have to admit I didn’t know who he was when we began hearing about him. As a child he was an opera singer and lived in this building until his voice broke at the age of 14 from puberty.

His director saw how good of a story teller he was and encouraged him to write stories. He is the writer of… wait for it… The Little Mermaid! There is a statue of Ariel on the water you can check out as well.

Hans also wrote many other stories that have turned into ballets, movies, and shows. Some of his most notable stories are The Ugly Duckling, Thumbelina, and Nightingale. He also wrote The Snow Queen which the movie Frozen was originally based on.

There is a ride at the amusement park in Copenhagen (more on that below!) based exclusively on fairytales written by Hans Christian Anderson.

If you go to Copenhagen it is impossible to miss Tivoli Gardens. This amusement park is located in the middle of downtown. It was opened in 1843 making it the second oldest amusement park in the world.

People claim that Walt Disney took many ideas from Tivoli to create Disneyland after he visited the park.

We definitely noticed the uniqueness of this amusement park and it’s similarities to Disney.

When walking around the park you feel as if you are entering different lands. There is a whole area that feels like Chinatown.

A building that resembles the Taj Mahal.

A restaurant on a ship that serves Caribbean style cuisine.

And beautifully decorated beer gardens.

In downtown Copenhagen they have a beautiful park called Kings Garden which is worth a walk through.

There is a garden and summer palace in the park that was built during in the 1600’s.

There were tons of picnics and yard games happening everywhere in this park.

Copenhagen is definitely a place you want to walk as much as possible within the city. Not only is it very safe but you will stumble upon so many great areas.

Walking around the river is beautiful. You will find impressive yachts, party boats, tourist cruises, and plenty of activity.

The middle of downtown has plenty of outdoor shopping with pedestrian only streets.

We also happened to come across more colorful buildings which are my favorite!

A well kept secret when visiting Copenhagen is The Tower. You can head up to the top of this building for free!

The city is beautiful from up here.

There are tons of museums in Copenhagen. We were told the best one to learn about the country we were in is the National Museum of Denmark. They had a Viking exhibit and many other Denmark themed areas.

The last major thing we did in Copenhagen is head to the Carlsberg Brewery.

This building holds the Guinness World Record for the largest bottled beer collection.

There are over 16,000 bottles of beer in this enormous collection!

The brewery has its own horse stable and carriage to take you around the property.

You can tour the brewery and learn about the beer making process.

We would highly recommend doing the tasting as well. We got to try several of the craft beers only being sold in Denmark.

We also made some friends from Norway during our tasting 🙂

I didn’t expect to see beaches while we were in Denmark. But we had this beautiful beach only a mile down the road from where we were staying. A perfect spot for a night swim or run.

Overall, we LOVED our first stop in Scandinavia. We have some high expectations for the rest of this area.