One of the European cities participating in the Icelandair fare sale was Copenhagen, Denmark. The good part about this is that Copenhagen was definitely on our “must visit” list, because we have relatives there who just had a baby and we wanted to visit them. The not-as-good part is that the Baltic Sea separates Copenhagen from continental Europe. That means we either had to fly or take a ferry across the Baltic. It’s not a huge problem, it’s just another expense that needed to be included in our budget. And it needed to be accounted for on a round trip basis; since we flew into Copenhagen, we would need to get back there to fly home.

Here are my first impressions of Copenhagen:

It appeared to be clean, everywhere we looked. There was no trash or other debris on the streets. The one odd exception is that we found several bicycles tossed into the canals.

We took the train several times, and it always arrived and departed right on schedule. We are from the San Francisco Bay Area, where we have the BART subway system. The BART trains have conductors piloting the trains. Before leaving a station, the BART conductor will visually look down the platform to make sure no one is still stepping onto the train before closing the doors and departing. In Denmark, the trains are automated with no conductor, so passengers are on their own to avoid the closing doors.

Strangers on the street were not particularly friendly, at least not very outgoing. However, we stayed at three different AirBnB’s, and all of the hosts were extremely accommodating. All the hosts were warm, inviting and welcoming, with one family inviting us to join them for dinner. We definitely enjoyed our AirBnB experiences in Copenhagen.

This will likely not be a surprise to anyone, but the reports are true, there are bicycles everywhere! I haven’t seen this many bicycles in use since visiting the Santa Barbara and Davis university campuses in California. The good thing is, the cyclists behave in very orderly fashion. At one point we observed a long queue of cyclists lined up waiting for a drawbridge to close – everyone waited patiently, within the lines on their side of the bike lane.

The cost of living seemed high, even for basic necessities such as food. Our first meal was lunch at a food truck style food court. We ordered a simple, carryout lunch of Mongolian barbecue ribs, curry cauliflower, and one piece of flat bread; the cost, including taxes but not drinks, came to the equivalent of about $36 US. Unlike the US, no tipping is required here. For comparison, we recently had a similar meal in the US; we paid $22, including tax, and added a $4 tip, so $36 vs. $26. I added a small hot chocolate to my Copenhagen meal, and it cost over $7, which is also significantly more than what a similar drink would cost in the US. Likewise, the tax on the purchase of new automobiles is high. It has fluctuated in recent years, but it has been as high as 180%, making a $25,000 vehicle cost $70,000.

We had good food, we enjoyed places such as Tivoli Gardens, and we had a great time visiting relatives. We would love to return to Copenhagen again one day.