Malmö Copenhagen Trip Report 2022-03-23

We planned to spend a couple of nights in Copenhagen starting on Wednesday but Tuesday we became restless, so we decided to take an extra night in Malmö. We checked into The Moment Hotel. It is under reconstruction hence its low price. The rooms are Scandinavian minimalist and ours at least was quite comfortable.
It was nice to wander in a city. We took a beer sitting in the sun watching a hectic world go by. We finished the evening in the Green Lion Inn. It is a stylish pub with a good selection of beers. We ate fish and chips.
This morning we took breakfast in a newly renovated room with high ceilings. The chairs when dragged out from under the tables echoed disturbingly. The neighbouring table was occupied by a well tattooed young man. He lifted his chair silently with one hand. A young woman with short clipped dark hair, a white jacket and trousers stared intently at her plate and her long earrings swayed as she chewed.
It was a short drive from Malmö to Copenhagen. We found parking near the Den Hirschsprungske Samling and enjoyed an exhibition of Bertha Wegmann’s paintings. Her portraits use a variety of lighting arrangements and the hands of the subjects are often essential to the composition. It was inspiring.
Lunch was smorrebrod eaten in the sun with a non-alcoholic beer as we still needed to drive to our hotel.
The Comfort Hotel is a familiar friend, central, clean and comfortable. On our way to take a pre-dinner glass of wine, we saw a large group of adults and children promoting this year’s Tour de France cycling away.
Dinner was in a Vietnamese restaurant. I took oysters followed by a noodle salad. The normal French chopped red onion and vinegar accompaniment to oysters was replaced by a spicy variant. It was quite acceptable. We decided to go to a blues club but when we arrived at 21:00 they were still doing sound checks so we wandered home and played table football in our hotel before retiring for the night.
Breakfast on Thursday was good. A young girl broke down in tears at the orange juice machine causing an embarrassed queue. Despite being comforted by her mother she continued to cry when she returned to her table and eventually stormed out clutching her phone. I pondered on the joys of parenthood.
Later we wandered to a school that had a working Paternoster. We took a ride up and down and photographed posing students. The next stop was the Mosaiska cemetery, but it was closed so we walked to Nørreport Saluhall through an area with an overabundance of graffiti which confirmed my distaste for it. We ate Tapas with Rioja sitting in the sun. Where we will eat tonight is undecided.
I always make the same mistake, of asking for the “hot” variant in an Indian restaurant. The food was good, but my mouth was still tingling a couple of hours later. We ate too much and tried to walk it off in the Ködbyens area. The old meat district has retained its architectural style but now is full of an amazing number of restaurants. Many people sat outside in 10°c. It was poignant to pass an area with people sleeping rough and 20 metres later see a fine dining restaurant. In Copenhagen some small bars still allow smoking. It feels a little bit like the Wild West.
After breakfast this morning we checked out and walked to the Nørreport market to buy grappa, cheese and mortadella. On the way we found the traffic to be light despite it being around 10 am. Copenhagen does not seem to be half as bad as say London or even Stockholm. We walked by the Peblinge Sø and then into Ørstedsparken. The park was full of blooming crocuses. On the drive in from Malmö, there were also many areas planted with crocuses.
After the park is a large open area just before the market with a basketball pitch and a large skateboard circle. From a preschool at the side of this area emerged 30 very small children with helmets and yellow jackets all riding small cycles or push cycles. They were from a sports preschool. Their teachers broke them up into groups and they cycled around the outside of the basketball pitch or within an area demarcated by cones. It was a charming sight. We sat on a bench for a while in the sun to watch the fun.
We wandered around the market shopping and then ate lunch in precisely the same tapas bar we had the day before.
Fortified, we walked back to our hotel and car. After a short stop at the Bottle Shop, we are now home and very pleased with our trip. The weather was perfect. The time of year was wonderful.
But it’s nice to be back in Skillinge. We were welcomed by Svea and Bernhardt, a pair of ducks that come up to the back door of the house three times a day to be fed peanuts. They had missed us and were hungry.