Copenhagen Day 3 aka Malmö

For our 3rd Day in Copenhagen, we'd decided to head over to Malmö in Sweden as it was just over the Øresund Bridge.
The night before we'd asked at the ticket office in the train station and found out that trains ran pretty regular and we could get a double return ticket for 260DKK (approx £30)as long as we travelled together.
The train from Copenhagen H or Central Station was the same train that goes to the airport, it took about 40 minutes to get to Malmö - there wasn't much of a view, it was quite foggy then we went into a tunnel. When we arrived in Malmo, there were no passport checks, we just walked out into the brisk cold air of Sweden! Apparently it's one of the few border crossings where you can get away with showing only a credit card for ID.

We didn't have much of a plan for Malmö, we'd read that Lilla Torg was the square where everyone hangs out drinking coffee, but that must be reserved for the Summer months


We'd also decided to check out the Castle/Museum (Malmöhus), to get there we walked through a Cemetery which seemed to be in the middle of the town, across to a 'Kingspark' to Malmöhus. As we approached we could see the infamous Turning Torso shrouded in fog


The entrance fee was around £5/6 and as we found out included entry into all the museums in the immediate area (7 in total)- which included Malmo Museum & Castle, the Technology & Maritime Museum, a Photography Gallery - Although how you would manage to see everything in one day is beyond me! We spent a good 3 hours plus in the Castle/Museum alone.
When we arrived we were greeted with this sign,


which confused us for about a minute as we hadn't realised there were exhibitions about Apartheid, Nelson Mandela as well as the Scandinavian migration to South Africa.

In addition to these special exhibitions, there were also modern art galleries with prints, paintings etc and the castle itself which documents the history of Malmo and it's tumultuous affair with Denmark, whilst downstairs there is an exhibition of stuffed animals native to Sweden along with actual live nocturnal animals.


For lunch we ate at the Museum Cafe, this was fantastic seeing as Sweden is renowned for being expensive and a McDonald's meal was going to cost around £6 each. The main meals cost approx £7 each, I had breaded plaice with new potatoes and Danish sauce whilst he had something that looked like a giant toad in the whole but with bacon instead of sausages, included in the price was help yourself salad bar/bread, drinks from the dispensers (not bottled/canned) and tea/coffee, complete bargain!

After a hearty but much needed lunch we saw a bit more of the exhibits mentioned above then set off to investigate the other places, including the fisherman's wharf (which seemed to be closed, although to be fair, it was freezing and very quiet), a very non de-script building that had some sort of exhibition about recycling/climate change then upstairs had two contemporary photography exhibitions. The only shame about the photography gallery was that the booklets with the language translations were found at the end of the exhibition rather than at the beginning.
Onwards to the Technology & Maritime Museum, which reminded me of Manchester's Science & Industry Museum, except smaller and warmer feeling. Considering we don't speak Swedish or Danish we did ok at working out what was going on most of the time, as it seems that the further away from the Main Castle we got, the fewer the translations (and unlike London, you weren't being offered those audio guides at every turn either). In fact in some areas there were non at all, leaving you to guess that maybe the Swedes just really like motorbikes, or the wheel in general. The highlight of this museum for me was the submarine, which you could climb inside, I saw climb because you couldn't walk through it, it was tiny! Well I guess it would be bigger if you took out all the controls etc, but then it wouldn't be as much fun.



Along side the sub, there were cars, planes, bikes, motorbikes, scooters and I seem to recall a horse & carriage.
Not to mention a Viking ship.



After this we decided to head back to Denmark and made our slow walk back to the station, via an Irish pub where we had a much needed Tuborg to keep us going.

Copenhagen Day 2

For our second day in Copenhagen, there was one trip that had been very well researched - a trip to the Carlsberg Brewery Visitors Centre! It was about 20 minutes stroll from our hotel and is one of the most impressive buildings in terms of decorative architecture I've seen.

The visitors centre costs DKK 60 which is around £7 and includes 2 free drinks (soft or beer), this in itself makes the ticket a bargain as you would pay somewhere in the region of £6 a pint in most Copenhagen bars and the staff all speak several languages like most places in Copenhagen.
The tour starts with the largest sealed bottled beer collection in the world and it is impressive!

Row upon row of bottles, there are also screens with more info and Carlsberg adverts, but we just spent ages looking at all the different labels!
The rest of the tour guides through not only the history of the Carlsberg Brewery & beers, but also of the workers and the city of Copenhagen, pretty much all of the written information is in both Danish and English.

Like most tourist attractions there is also a gift shop which has all manner of Carlsberg/Tuborg related merchandise - we were quite gutted that we couldn't take stuff home in the suitcase with us, they had some nice bottles/glasses etc..
After the gift shop is the aroma room - this was my favourite part of the tour - numerous bottle with various aromas in that are used in beer

the idea being that you sniff them all and mark on a card which aromas you like most, then there is a corresponding chart hanging from the ceiling which tells you which beers you should try based on their aroma. My favourite aromas included coffee, cereal & bread! So then it's on to the Jacobsen Bar where you collect your free drinks - with over 35 types of beer to choose from you are spoilt for choice!
The bar also does some nice Danish food which is also reasonably priced

The menu for food & beer can be downloaded from their website - most beers (after the free ones) cost DKK 25 which is about £3. Also if that isn't enough, in the centre of the room you can see the bottling plant, which is the only part of the tour where you'll see actual brewery action.


After all the fun of the brewery tour, we had a casual stroll back towards our hotel, which is when we noticed all the sex shops on the same street!
We had decided to take in some art in the afternoon so we went to the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

This gallery also charges DKK 60 to enter, but it wasn't really worth it in our opinion, unless you're really into 19th Century/Early 20th Century French/Danish art works.

We thought the Early Egyptian/Ancient Roman & Greek artefacts would be interesting but without any context as to why they were collected (the translations were quite sporadic) it left us cold - we'd seen similar collections in Tunisia that seemed far more coherent.

It's probably worth noting that in Winter/off season (ie October to March), most Danish tourist attractions close at 4/5pm which feels quite early.

After this we headed back to our hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, then went for an intended wander, however we didn't get very far as we ended up at the end of the street (literally 30 seconds away) in the Jernbane Cafeen a train themed bar/pub. It was very quaint and friendly - the staff spoke good English although we had a bit of trouble explaining which type of Carlsberg beer we wanted, however - there were folders/menu's on the table, and after pointing at what we wanted we ended up with a good ol' Carl's Lager

The bar train theme (we assumed because of the proximity to the station)was pretty impressive - the seats were from trains, all numbered along with destination plates etc.. the toilets even had train sound effects when you entered! They also had one of the cheapest slot machines I've ever tried, for about £3 we had around 80 goes, of course the winnings were also minimal and we didn't really know what we were doing, but it was fun.

Well I got the name sorted for now, blogbeat inspired by Cressboy, a witty take on my flickr sn of breakbeat. Clever huh?
Well I've spent the evening processing, editing and uploading more holiday photos to my flickr page including this wee fella

Taken at the Bardo Museum in Tunisia.
If naked statues with body parts missing are your thing then check out the rest of the set here