Berlin/Copenhagen for Thanksgiving 2017

You board a train in Copenhagen and in 30 minutes you are in Malmö, a city in Sweden on the other side of the sound. It’s not a particularly exciting city after Copenhagen, but it is still a nice place to walk around, get a feel that it is different from Denmark and try smorgasbord (I am not sure what we were more excited about: visiting new country or eating all you can eat buffet). 

Copenhagen itself is not too big. We had walked through the same streets and squares multiple times. And yet I wanted to go on a city walk proposed in the guide book to make sure we didn’t miss anything important. 

Natasha came all the way from Geneva to hang out with us in Copenhagen!

How do we get the best out of Copenhagen in three days? It was a tough question because there was a lot to see inside and outside the city. There were quite a few different options for day trips near Copenhagen to see castles, museums, and even Sweden. We had to prioritize. The winner on the first day was 🏰 Kronborg, which was 40 minutes north of the city (very convenient by 🚆), standing on a cliff with dramatic views of the sound and Sweden.

We arrived to Copenhagen in the afternoon, settled in the hotel that was right near water

Next destination – Copenhagen! I didn’t know much about Denmark or Copenhagen before this trip. We picked this city because it was convenient to get to from Berlin and Matt had never been there before. 

We started our last day in Berlin by heading to Charlottenburg palace. It was built by the first queen of Prussia, Sophie Charlotte (SC). She was very fond of music, philosophy and witty conversations. After she was done with performing her royal duties and giving birth to an heir, she retired to her palace to engage in her favorite activities (listed above). SC considered music her only true and loyal companion because it never betrayed or bored her like human friends and lovers. One of her contemporary writers described her as having compass shaped eyebrows and beautiful teeth. 

There is a list of standard places to see in Berlin. And as diligent tourists we had to check off at least a few major ones.

The only thing I planned way in advance was a visit to Reichstag. It’s free but requires reservation ahead of time (they turned away a lot of people at the gate). We had tickets for a guided tour of the building and an unguided ascend to the dome. 

Pergamonmuseum. The most visited museum in Germany. It is not big, so you can see it in one hour. We spent two (after standing in line for maybe 20 minutes).