Friday 3 April 2015

Hej! Limpeh is heading off to Denmark and Sweden!

Hi guys, I am working on a longer post this Easter weekend and I still have a vlog piece to edit. But I have booked a holiday to Copenhagen and Malmo - I will be spending a total of 6 days 5 nights in these two cities. I'm quite excited! Even though I have been to Sweden a few times, I have never actually ever been to Denmark before - I just never really had a reason to go and it has been something I had always wanted to do. I also just had to book something to console myself anyway since I had spotted some really cheap flights to Japan a few days ago for about £275 return (via Rome with Alitalia) - now that's a really good deal but I had not actually planned to take a long haul holiday this spring. Anyway, I hesitated for about 36 hours and when I finally thought, mai tu liao, let's go to Japan and have a fun time in Tokyo. I got out my credit card and tried to book the flight and it was gone. That's the price of procrastination.

I was contemplating skiing again since it is still April and yes you can still ski in April, but when your choices are far more limited in April (given the warmer spring weather you are limited to higher ski resorts) and the fact that I had recently injured my left ankle again, I have decided that to pass on skiing this time. Besides, I have already skied twice this winter, so I suppose that is enough for one winter. I will make some effort to learn Danish and Swedish before I leave for this trip, but the standard of English in Denmark and Sweden are amongst the highest in the world for non-native English speaking countries. But that is not going to stop me from studying Danish and Swedish, it's fun to learn.
Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark

It was then a choice of Italy, Malta or Denmark (those were the cheapest flights): I have done Italy quite a few times and I thought, well I have done a lot of the Mediterranean in the last 12 months (Greece, Albania, Tunisia and Southern Spain). Denmark will be the 48th country I will be visiting and I hope to reach the 50-country mark by the end of this year.  I will make it to Malta at some point in time, it is a nice destination that has come highly recommended but I have also always been tempted by Copenhagen and Malmo because you can get two cities for the price of one: Copenhagen (in Denmark) is only 35 minutes away from Malmo (in Sweden) by train across the Øresund bridge.

My regular readers will know that I am a big fan of the US TV series The Amazing Race and they have visited Copenhagen twice in series 19 and most recently in series 25 (when they also visited Malmo briefly). I hope to visit as many of the places they have covered in the programme as possible and for my reference, I have compiled a list here for my forthcoming trip. So from series 19 (in 2011) in episodes 4 and 5 (remember Cindy and Ernie?), they visited:
And then more recently in series 25 (in 2014) episode 4, they visited: 
So there you go, that's plenty for me to see and do in my 6 days in Copenhagen and Malmo - I will be doing the AirBNB thing for Malmo anyway and I'm sure I will be getting plenty of great useful local advice. I will be doing a hotel in Copenhagen because I managed to get a really good flights + hotel deal off a travel website. Copenhagen was never going to be a cheap destination but the hotel location was excellent and the price turned out to be quite a lot cheaper than if I had booked the flights and hotel separately, hence I went for that deal. I will definitely be filming vlog pieces in both Copenhagen and Malmo, so that's my incentive to finish editing my Manchester vlog piece before I go! 

Any travel tips for Copenhagen or Malmo, please leave me a comment below. Many thanks for reading, mange tak! 
I was in Sweden just last year!

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7 comments:

  1. Unknown3 April 2015 at 14:08

    If you haven't yet, look into getting an Öresund Rundt ticket! Gives you free travel around the Sound, in one direction (eg. ferry from Helsingborg to Helsingør, train from Copenhagen to Malmö — or the other way around), and it's dirt cheap compared to that :)

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    1. Limpeh Foreign Talent3 April 2015 at 17:03

      Hi there, thanks for the tip. I looked up the ticket and unfortunately it is a two day ticket, ie. it would be perfect if I was only spending 1 night in Malmö but my plan was to spend 2 nights in Malmö and 3 nights in Copenhagen. So I can't use that ticket. I wanted to use my AirBNB credits for at least part of this trip and there is a minimum spend of US$75 before I can redeem the credits, so that was why I had opted to spend 2 nights in Malmö even though it isn't a big city like Copenhagen.

      I had a look at travel between Copenhagen and Malmö and it isn't really that expensive by bus - like 49 SEK with Swebus? That's only like £4.90 and very reasonable. The Oresund Rundt ticket is like 249 SEK which is more like £20.

      So I don't know if I am that fussed about getting the Oresund Rundt ticket because I did see plenty of rural Swedish idyllic islands last year when I was in Gothenburg and explored the islands around there: http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/lift-vlog-episode-25-swedish-islands.html

      But thanks for the tip. Mage tak, tack sa mycket!!

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    2. Unknown4 April 2015 at 12:14

      Ah, yes, it does depend a lot on how you want to look around and how much time you want to spend and all that :)

      We were stationed in Malmö (in one of the Hostelling International hostels, near Triangeln), so it was just a quick trip around the Sound one day, and we looked around mostly in Copenhagen in the afternoon (and used the trains and buses a few times) before coming back home with a really late train; and the next day we used it as a way for free movement within Malmö, so... all in all it turned out to be a cheap (or reasonably cheap) way to see eeeeverything.

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  2. Calvin4 April 2015 at 08:31

    hej hej, you should consider checking out the changing of guard at Amalienborg Palace (daily at 12noon), or Christiana freetown in Copenhagen!

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    1. Limpeh Foreign Talent4 April 2015 at 10:55

      Thanks! My Danish friend has also suggested Dyrehaven, Louisiana museum, arken museum, møns klint, AROS arts museum In Århus (admittedly, kinda far).

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    2. Unknown4 April 2015 at 12:17

      Ah yes, Christiania :) Was on our bucket list too, checked it out, expected a bit more I guess — though not sure what. The town nearby is great though: with that spiral-towered church just a few streets away from Christiania's entrance; and there's a café that Bill Clinton has once visited :)

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  3. Robinson12 March 2020 at 12:47

    Thanks for your blog about your experience of your Easter holiday in Sweden and other Schengen countries, it really inspires other. Schengen countries are a great place to spend the Easter holiday. I must apply for the Sweden visa for my visit in Sweden.

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