So, the last time we left off, we were in search of lunch! Being the absolute tourists we were, we headed straight to Torvehallerne which was a short walk away from the museum/botanical garden. Made up of 2 buildings, Torvehallerne is the classic European food market situation. There are delis, coffee shops, ice cream stands, chocolate artisans and, what we came for, Smørrebrød. We headed straight inside to Hallernes and got the traditional open sandwich, one with fish cake and shrimp, the other straight shrimp. Alongside one coke to share, this cost us £30. Yes, you read that correctly, thirty British sterling pounds. They were delicious, but I reckon if you ask a local, they’d be able to point you in the direction of somewhere just as good, for less. We sat and ate our smørrebrød, surrounded by cut flowers, sprouting lemon trees and baby fur trees. There was such a buzz with people milling around the market, sitting in the sun with friends/family, sipping coffee and eating pastries. We decided to follow the crowd and do the same before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had dinner at a beaut restaurant, but I’ll tell you about that on Sunday.

You know me by now, any excuse to be in, on or by any body of water and I am all over it. So I woke up the next morning wildly excited. So excited, in fact, that we arrived for our canal tour almost an hour early. To kill time, we took a stroll down Strøget. It’s one of Europe’s longest pedestrianised roads, but there’s loads of other little streets and ally’s coming off it. It’s filled with high end designer stores, regular degular high street stores – even a Sephora. Eventually, it was time to return to Nyhavn and get on the boat! Nyhavn is the place that you see if you search up Copenhagen on google images. The colourful buildings lining the canal was once a sketchy sea merchants town. In the 350 years since its creation, it’s changed a lot. It’s now a popular tourist spot, full of restaurants, cafes and one of the oldest tattoo shops in the world – King Frederik IX was a frequent customer apparently!

Our canal tour took us on a whirlwind adventure through the various waterways of Copenhagen. I had absolutely no idea that there was so much water surrounding the city – turns out the part of Denmark that Copenhagen sits in is almost like an island, (can you tell I did not pay attention in Geography? Ahem). Our hour long tour included meandering through Christiansborg, Christianshavn and even past The Little Mermaid. The statue was made in 1913 after the son of a well-known brewer saw a production of the story and wanted a sculpture created. My girl has had a tough time of it on that rock though – she’s been decapitated twice and had her arm completely sawn off. I’d defo recommend this tour but be sure to wrap up if you’re going in winter. It wasn’t actually that cold in Copenhagen but when you’re on the water and the wind is blowing in your face, it’s a while different ballgame. You can always pull the window down, but I wanted unobstructed views and pics. I booked this one in advance for about £13 each, but it seemed like people were buying tickets on the day without any problems.

Returning to land, we strolled over to the Round Tower. It was originally build as an observatory for emerging astronomers. Now, it’s a great lookout for 360 views over Copenhagen. I was a bit worried about the climb up, (do we remember me basically having a panic attack in Split?), but the tower itself is a very gentle, stair free, slope. I think we paid about £6 for the both of us to go up.

By this point, Mum wasn’t feeling very well, (whatever we picked up from the plane would hit me once we returned to England), so we grabbed a hotdog from DØP, (I wasn’t expecting the veggie sausage to be as good as it was!), and headed to Cinnamon & Coffee to chill. It eventually came time to head to the hotel, pick up our suitcase and go to the airport.

Copenhagen was a great weekend destination! If we didn’t end up getting ill, I would have like to wander around another neighbourhood – I had Nørrebro on my list – and maybe visit one of the churches. What you’ve heard about Copenhagen is true though: it is expensive! The cultural activities weren’t particularly spenny, but food and drink seemed to be extortionate. Definitely be prepared, if you’ve got any spare organs to sell, maybe do that beforehand.

When I was growing up, it was just me and Mum so money was tight. If we did go away, it was to Nevis and even those trips took a longggggg hiatus because we were brass. This is probably partly the reason why I’m so desperate to see the world now and why going to the airport and getting on a plane is still the most exciting thing in the world to me. Getting the chance to go away with my Mum is a proper treat – experiencing new places together is super special. I’m mad grateful for the relationship we have, the opportunities to travel and to create these memories together.