Contiki Scandinavia - Denmark

Airport lounges are weird. In fact, airports in general are weird. It’s the one place you can’t joke around too much and where people watching is considered a form of entertainment. I am currently writing this in my 5-hour layover in Stockholm airport, slightly hungover and incredibly exhausted. Trying to comprehend everything that happened in the past two weeks. I thought travelling was meant to be relaxing, but in fact this trip has been very different. I may even label it as my favourite trip to date.

After I found myself with a large amount of holiday days remaining, I decided that the best option was to go for a mini-gap year tour. The location was easy, an area which I had always dreamed of travelling to but found it difficult due to the fact it is very expensive. However, this is where Contiki helped. Contiki is a travel company specially designed for young people with different trips spanning early every continent. I visited Greece with them in 2019 and loved how much of an insight it gave into the country, something that a simple city break couldn’t ever provide me with.

My trip started in the quaint city of Copenhagen, Denmark. I flew in direct and arrived hours before the trip began which gave me plenty of time to get my bearings and explore the Danish capital. Our hostel was located in the north of the city next to an interesting urban park which had loads of colourful graffiti, a very Scandinavian habit. It was quite nerve wracking as it was one of the first times I had ever travelled completely solo. I had plenty of experience in travelling with friends and family, often taking charge with the organisation, booking, driving to the airport and general not-getting-lost part. But this time I was completely alone, for now...

It was quite a relief when 5pm rolled around and I headed back to the hostel to meet my new Contiki family. Contiki is an Australian company which means that 90% of our trip consisted of Australians, leaving the final 10% to consist of some British, American and Kiwis.

I was sharing a room with another British girl called Anna. We were a similar age and had a lot in common so it really eased my nerves as we chatted and unpacked in the hostel room. It was also the first time I had ever been in a hostel, apart from on school trips. However, it was definitely a pleasant experience! It was very clean, just a bit cramped as I even had to put my suitcase at the end of my bed due to the lack of floor space! As Anna and I chatted, our next roommate piled in with her giant suitcase. Her name was Courtney and she was from Australia. We laughed and joked about the lack of space and the tiny shower before our final roommate appeared, another Australian girl called Sam. Once we had all made ourselves at home, we met for our trip meeting in the hostels canteen where we were introduced to our trip manager Tim.

The meeting consisted of Tim giving us all of the information regarding the next two weeks of the trip. The trip was taking us from Copenhagen, up to Oslo in Norway, then onto Voss, Geiranger Fjord and Gjovik before heading to Stockholm, Sweden and finally, heading to Helsinki, Finland via the overnight ferry.

After the meeting we had tea at the hotel before heading out to explore the city in the evening with Tim and the rest of the Contiki gang. The coach drove us to our first stop at the Little Mermaid Statue, which, hence the name, is a statue of a life-size mermaid located at the Langelinie promenade. The statue has sat peacefully on the docks for over 100 years, well maybe not ‘peacefully’ as she has been damaged and defaced many times since the 1960s for various reasons but has always been restored afterwards.

We got some photos as we tried not to fall on the very slippery rocks before heading back to the coach for another quick drive to the Amaleinborg Palace, the home of the Danish royal family. The Palace has a domed roof, taking a lot of inspiration from St. Peter’s Basilica in The Vatican City.

Our next stop was possibly my favourite part of the city, Nyhavn. Nyhavn is a 17th century waterfront, canal and entertainment district which is lined by beautiful brightly coloured townhouses. It was the perfect place for photos, especially at sunset! We walked around and got to know each other as we admired the simple yet picturesque architecture. Our trip manager suggested we all go to a bar to carry on talking, and what better way to break the ice than doing jagerbombs until 2am! One thing we did notice on the taxi back to the hostel was that it was still somewhat light outside. We would soon learn that the sun never truly sets in Scandinavia, especially as we travelled further North.

Fortunately, we all woke up feeling oddly refreshed and not hungover in the slightest… I told you jagerbombs did the trick, or perhaps it was more the thought of having Danish pastries for breakfast. I think the second answer was most likely. Needless to say, by 9:30am we had eaten our bodyweight in pastries and had found ourselves in the centre of Copenhagen.

Our trip manager Tim gave us an orientation tour, pointing out the best museums, viewpoints and places to eat, as we walked through the bustling streets. We had a lot planned for today; bike tours, inevitably feasting on more Danish pastries, and visiting Tivoli Gardens in the evening. To start, we explored Centrum Indre By – Copenhagen’s Inner City. One of the first landmarks we passed was the Stork Statue, which shows three storks about to fly off. This is often linked to the idea of fertility and childbirth, so much so that since 1950, it has been a tradition that the newly graduated midwives of Copenhagen will dance around the fountain.

We quickly hopped into one of the rooftops cafés to get a great vantage point of the busy square below. It was barely mid-morning but already people were peeling off the layers and applying sun cream. I didn’t even think to bring sun cream, I mean come on, who on earth gets sunburnt in Scandinavia!?

Me. That’s who gets sunburnt in Scandinavia.

Our bike tour started near the Orstedparken and took us a few kilometres away to our first stop. A little café on the side of the street where we ate a traditional Danish meal, Smorrebrod. Smorrebrod is simply an open-faced sandwich, consisting of rye bread and topped with various cold cuts of meat, fish and cheese with various spreads and garnishes. Considering this was our first food stop of many, it was unexpectedly filling! The Smorrebrod was probably my favourite meal out of the whole day but that may only have been because it was the only one, I was somewhat hungry enough for!

The next stop found us eating Danish hotdogs on the side of the road as our bikes collapsed into a heap. The Danish hotdogs are very similar to the German Bratwurst’s. The bike ride was the perfect opportunity to bond with our Contiki family as we all bonded over our aching legs and full stomachs. The majority of travellers on the trip were solo travellers which made everything a lot easier knowing that everyone was in the same boat as you.

As if we needed any more food? Our tour continued further into one of Copenhagen’s many food markets. We had a plate of some sort of fish pastry waiting for us. I’ll admit, I really wasn’t a fan and most of mine ended up in the bin, but at least I gave it a try, right?!

Thankfully, the tour finished back in the city centre! We had a few hours until we met to go to Tivoli Gardens, so we decided to head towards the Church of Our Saviour in Christianshavn. Christianshavn is a lively neighbourhood which was originally created as an independent merchant’s town with clear inspiration from Dutch cities (those canals look pretty DAM familiar after all). It’s certainly very different to the other areas of Copenhagen but never in a bad way. We decided to climb up the Church of Our Saviour which towers 90m above the ground, providing excellent views of Christianshavn and Copenhagen as a whole. The narrow staircases, ladders and viewing platforms didn’t put me at ease as I clung onto the railings for dear life as I took as many photos as I could in the shortest amount of time. It was very busy by this time which only made matters worse, I opted to go back down pretty much straight after reaching the top.

Tivoli Gardens was our final destination in Denmark, and quite possibly my favourite part of the city. Tivoli was opened way back in 1843 and is currently the second-oldest operating amusement park in the world! However, it’s not been an easy journey for the much-loved theme park as most of it was destroyed during the second world war in the Nazi occupation, fortunately it was rebuilt almost instantaneously, further proving how much it means to the people of Copenhagen. 1951 was the year when Walt Disney visited, four years before the original Disneyland was opened in California. Walt Disney paid several visits to Tivoli; he was fascinated by the mood and atmosphere of it all and was keen to recreate this into his own amusement park years later.

Immediately after walking in, you can feel the buzz. The squeals of children, the roaring sounds of the rollercoasters and the excitable chatter of our Contiki group. The park is split into different areas which are based on different continents which gives each area unique themed rides and restaurants. I’m not a huge fan of rides but I did make sure to go on as many as I could, my favourite one was definitely ‘The Mine’ which was an old styled ride with a ride operator in the front with unexpected dips and turns around the Mount Everest area of the park. The park had nearly every ride imaginable, from Ferris wheels, to bumper cars, carousels and fun houses.

We spent hours exploring the extensive theme park, going on the rides, screaming at the top of our lungs, eating unreal amounts of fast food and laughing uncontrollably. There was a band singing at the open-air stage which meant that the majority of the rides were fairly quiet as most people were listening to music. Plus, the wristbands that Contiki had organised for us meant that we had unlimited access to all of the rides!

Five hours flew past in what seemed like five minutes and we had to unfortunately head back to the hostel. The next morning, we would be starting our week long journey through Norway and the fjords… Copenhagen, you’ve been one of my favourite cities and I’m sure we’ll meet again, but for now, Hallo Norway!