Part Two: Starting 2014 on holiday in Rome and Copenhagen

Copenhagen, Denmark January 7 – January 10

The bright colours of Nyhavn

 Day Six

We had the breakfast at the hostel, just your average continental breakfast, but the cost was something we weren’t used to, 75DKK each (around £8). It was great though, we love hostel breakfasts, getting to fill up on; ham, boiled eggs, salami, cheese, yoghurt, bread rolls and coffee. It gives you enough fuel for exploring all day long, or until you can find somewhere reasonably cheap to eat.

We joined in on the free walking tour, our guide Rosie (originally from London) met us at the hostel and lead the way to the Town Hall, where we waited for her to pick-up more travellers from another hostel.

Nyhavn

A the colours of Nyhavn

While we waited we had a quick look around inside the beautiful building, but left the proper exploring of it for another day. Rosie told us everything from the bad luck the Copenhagen locals possess with fires to a legendary Second World War saga. We even stopped at coffee shop to have a coffee and because we were part of the tour we were given 10 per cent discount. We walked through town, along the canal, through the Amalienborg Palace grounds and finished in front of the Marble Church.

Rosie was finishing up her tour with said war story, when out of nowhere we heard drums and trumpets, which gave us a stir of excitement. Unfortunately she had stopped her story mid-sentence. After she had a peek around the corner to see what was causing the commotion, she hurriedly ushered us over; because low and behold Queen Margrethe and her man Prince Henrik were arriving home to Copenhagen in grandeur; with a royal parade and in their fancy royal carriage.

The parade

Beautiful 'Royal Horses'

The Royal carriage

You can just see Prince Henrik

The Queen even waved at me. It was true splendour to see them so close-up, there were no barriers or guards walking along side the carriages or horses.

After the excitement and seeing the royals and Rosie finally finishing her story, we joined a couple of other travellers from the tour and walked to Christiania in the district of Christianshavn, the alternative community, that works like a cooperative and abide by their own laws.

Once we were inside, you could instantly smell ‘it’ lingering in the air and dark old buildings surrounded us. You could see some artists and sculptors, making their art, but it mostly looked drab. I imagine it would look a lot nicer in summer though.

We then came to the sign at the start of Pusher Street, where it read, “Dear Friends, there are three rules in the Green Light District: Have fun, don’t run – it causes panic [and] no photos – buying and selling hash is still illegal.” It was a kind of creepy street with its dealers in their tracksuit, gangster-like outfits, quite dodgy, compared to say Amsterdam’s Redlight district, where it is done indoors and you are dealing with shopkeepers and not drug ‘gangs.’

We met up with some Canadians (also from the tour), who were smoking joints they’d just bought. It seemed expensive for the little fun that it could bring. Then we all decided to sit down, some bought food at this organic café – J and I shared a juice.

Then we started heading on out of there, but not before two of the girls we were with, decided to use a bathroom, well what they thought was a bathroom, a sign above the door read “badeanstalt,” unfortunately for their eyes, it was not a bathroom, but in fact a bath house/sauna full of naked men and women.

We all left the Christiania behind and headed back to our hostels. J and I rested in the bar back at our one with a Weiss beer.

Then it was the search for dinner and by search, I mean like an actual search.

We walked all over town almost to find a restaurant to eat at, as we really wanted to try local cuisine, as you do when you’re in far away lands, however we were on a tight budget. After about a half an hour walk, we eventually sat down at Sporvejen. Which looked like an old tram on the inside and it was full of old tram memorabilia, from when Copenhagen had a tram*. We ate delicious burgers and had two glasses of Tubourg Gold. It was a really fun dining experience.

Day Seven

On this morning, J and I walked through town to Nørrebro, just for coffee, but a coffee shop we’d read in our Lonely Planet: Europe on a shoestring (2011), so of course it must be good. So it was at the Coffee Collective where we had found ourselves that morning, and it was of course tasty coffee; we even had a hindbær snitte along with it, an almond pastry that was out of this world good.

After our coffee we waltzed along Jægerborggade, looking into the chic Scandinavian designed boutiques, you could tell we were in the ‘it’ suburb of Copenhagen, with all its ‘hip-ness,’ J and I were saying to ourselves we’d live there if we ever moved to Copenhagen. We then grabbed more pastries from the bakery Meyers Bageri; we both bought savoury potato and pesto buns and then I chose a cinnamon and chocolate scroll for myself, where J on the other hand picked a caramel scroll for himself.

Then we walked across the road to Assistens Kirkegård and sat down at a bench seat among the shrubbery and enjoyed our feast.

It was only as we started walking through the park, we realised it turned into a cemetery and then we started seeing signs for Hans Christian Anderson’s tomb. After wandering around the shrubbery and other haunting tombstones, we eventually found it, to pay our respects to the author.

A beautiful headstone 

Afterwards we walked back into town, back through the suburbs, until we came to the Copenhagen Town Hall. With no entry fee, unless you wanted to go on a tour of the joint, it was up to yourself to explore, though it would've been nice to look around the rest of the building, it was something that had stayed with me, since Rosie had told us about it; Jen Olsen's World Clock; with displays that include lunar and solar eclipses, positions of the planets, a calendar and the time. The slowest gear completes a revolution every 25, 753 years. It has to be the most intricate and fascinating pieces of mechanics I've ever seen. 

Then we were off to the National Museum, where we enjoyed walking through the Danish Prehistory part, displaying findings from 13,000BC to 1050AD, which was fascinating. There were remains of a woman and a boy that been discovered in Vedbæk, North Zealand, and they were dated as being more than 7,000 years old. There was also Viking treasure; including a Viking boat.

Afterwards we went back to the hostel, where we had a break, before finding a nice restaurant not far from the hostel, where we drank two small beers (that’s all we could afford) and ate nachos and tapas for dinner.

Day Eight

It rained all day, I’m not even kidding, it was all day! I think this is the worse holiday we’ve had in terms of bad weather, but we did go during winter after all*. It rained so much when we were walking from the hostel to the ‘the Little Mermaid,’ that we had to turn around and find a café to sit down and wait for it to stop.

We were soaked from head to toe when we arrived at MorMor’s, an antique café, where were drank lattes and (of course) munched on pastries.

After our coffee break we decided to go back to the hostel, to get changed, rest and dry off and wait the rain out.  Once it had stopped we then wandered into town and walked around the shops, wishing we were wealthy enough to shop at all the lovely and expensive stores. We even went into the Lego flagship store and bought a Lego man key ring, which was wearing a Copenhagen t-shirt, as a souvenir for ourselves.

We stopped to have a hot dog at a Pølsevogn, J had found a name of one during some research on what to do in Copenhagen. There were different types of delicious sausages and then all sorts of different toppings and sauces. I think I got the French-type sausage and of course had fried onion, mustard and ketchup. There is a few different ways you can have a hot dog in Denmark, so it is best to look at the pictures on the menu for explanations. For a cheap food option, it is also a staple food there, so you get a taste of what locals really enjoy eating.

We then had dinner at the hostel and we tried a new Danish beer and then we played some pool. We even came across some more Australians and we found out that not everyone follows the same ‘rules’ for the game as we do; where you put you gold coin on the green of the table so as to shotgun the table and to ensure you go next. We confused a couple of people by doing that. Who knew we were the only ones that did that.

Day Nine

We paid for the continental breakfast at the hostel again, and we played a game of pool again, to wait the rain out…again.

The rain did die off eventually and we were finally able to walk all the way to see the Little Mermaid, a sculpture based on the Hans Christian Anderson children’s story. J didn’t think it was worth getting soaked for, but I thought it was quite a nice gesture of Carl Jacobsen (the man behind Carlsberg) who commissioned Edvard Eriksen to sculpt the piece after he fell in love with the character at a ballet performance of the fairy tale.

The Little Mermaid

After a few snaps of the mermaid, we walked to the palace grounds, to watch the changing of the guard. Which was a spectacle, and they had normal security to move you around the square, so as you could watch the whole show properly, it was very well done.

Royal Guards at their post

The Changing of the Guard ceremony

Then of course it started raining and then the ceremony was interrupted by some guards (without their traditional hats on) ran to the residence of Prince Frederik and Princess Mary and then a police car arrived with its siren on, and escorted someone in a car out of the palace grounds. We wondered if it was Prince Frederik, it definitely wasn’t Mary.

We continued to stand in the rain and see the whole thing through, once it was over we went into the first café we saw and had a simple lunch of soup and toasties while our feet defrosted.

Then sadly it was home time, we walked back to the hostel to get our stuff, caught the metro back and flew back to Edinburgh.

Well until next time… x

PS. For more details about a trip to Copenhagen have a look at the Visit Copenhagen website www.visitcopenhagen.com/copenhagen-tourist

 * The irony didn’t escape me, since we’re living in Edinburgh, where a new tramline is set to start running in May this year, after the original trams stopped running in 1956.

* Don’t let this put you off visiting Copenhagen during winter, because a few weeks after we returned to Edinburgh, Copenhagen was treated with light snow, which of course instantly transforms any city. Especially if you’re from the Southern Hemisphere, you can sit outside cafes, under an outside heater, with a blanket on your lap and a mulled wine in your hand.

Part One: Starting 2014 on holiday in Rome and Copenhagen

J’s parents and sister came to visit us over Christmas and Hogmanay (what Scottish folk call New Year) here in Edinburgh, which was lovely. And we also decided to head to Europe with them, just so we could spend some more time together.

J’s mum had her heart set on going to Italy, since she had never been, so we decided to tag along with them to Rome. Oh Rome, my third time and J’s second. What can I say? I can never get enough of Italy.

We decided in the end to take a week and a half off work, and make a bit of a trip out of it. So then we decided on going to Copenhagen for a few nights as well. Especially, since we hadn’t made it to any Scandanavian country thus far, which is a shame, because I don’t think (at the time of writing this) we’ll be able to visit another Scandinavian country until…well who knows.

Our reason for wanting to go to Copenhagen you ask - well I don’t know, apart from seeing the photos of the colourful houses along the canal in Nyhavn and hearing about how wonderful Scandic life is. Copenhagen, out of all the Scandinavian countries was probably the cheapest option as well, as there is a direct flight to Edinburgh with Easy Jet.

We had managed to find cheap train tickets on trainline.com to train it to Manchester on New Years Day and so we booked our flights to fly out from Manchester Airport on January 2. We stayed at the Premier Inn (the South complex) near the airport. 

Which was a perfect location for our early flight the next day and after our four-hour train journey from Edinburgh. But we had great meals at the restaurant and a nice comfortable sleep there. The staff are friendly as well, which was lovely (you know what I’m like with bad service).

Rome, Italy January 2 – January 6

Day One

We left when it wasn’t even light out, we hadn’t been up that early since that shady flight from Faro, Portugal last year. Even at this hour though, I was very excited to be going back to Rome, to be with ‘my people*’.

We had collected our bags and were waiting for our shuttle bus (an open return to Termini Stazione was €8) by mid-morning. Once we arrived at Termini, we bought metro tickets and caught the metro to San Giovanni station, and found our way to the airbnb flat J’s Mum had booked for all of us. We had to walk through the ancient city walls to find it on Viale Carlo Felice. We were buzzed up to the third floor, where we were greeted by one of the owners, Susanna.

Due to last minute changes to our arrival (we booked earlier flights), instead of J’s parents and sister beating us there, we arrived first and Susanna was still having the house cleaned and prepped for our stay and the current guests still had their luggage there. So instead of getting in everyone’s way, we decided to head out for lunch and a wander around the area. After finding the suggestion that Susanna had made was closed during the day, we turned around and went back to the corner of Viale Spezia to eat at Bar Spazio, where the food was appreciatively cheap.

J ordered mushroom pizza and I order gnocchi in a tomato and basil sauce. ‘Mmm,’ I hear you say. It was delicious and cheap, and I had my first real experience of ‘trying’ to order espressi. This was mainly a failed attempt, because, a) It was break time, and a big group of people rushed into the café and b) they ordered as Italians were intended to do… they ordered their espressos and drank them at the bar, but in the ‘Italian’ way, which it means it was really fast and really noisy.

Needless to say J and I had our espressos brought to our table…how un-Italian of us.

J’s parents and sister arrived later in the early evening. While we let them settle in, I decided to try out my Italian skills over the phone. You know what they say, ‘practice makes perfect.’ I was calling Al Duello, the restaurant J and I ate at two nights in a row when we were on holiday in 2012. My favourite restaurant in the whole world (apart from the ones we’re yet to eat at), so I dialled and someone picked-up and I said…

“Vorrei prenotare un tavolo per cinque persone, per le otto domain notte.”

Which loosely translates (or I wanted to say)…

“I would like a table for five people, for eight o’clock, tomorrow night.”

The lady on the phone, basically then said sorry I don’t understand. And then I said something along the lines of “oui” and “pardon,” which is of course French! Pretty embarrassing. Then the lovely lady on the phone then asked if I spoke French and I said ‘no’… so she spoke English to me. Oh the irony of the situation is not lost on me still. Look at me, I’m multi-lingual, not!

When everyone was ready, we decided to try out Susanna’s recommendation, and headed for dinner at Al Grottino. A pizzeria, which used traditional pizza cooking methods, which mean it was cooked in a wood-fired oven.

J, his dad and sister and I ordered a pizza each, and J’s Mum ordered chicken wings for herself.

I had pizza alla Romana, a pizza typical of Rome, a pizza topped with mostly onions, it had to be one of the best pizza’s I’ve ever had*. We also shared red wine that came in decanters. And then came dessert, I had a chocolate fondant, which had a delicious oozy chocolate centre. Dinner was perfect, definitely one of the best places where I’ve eaten in Rome.

After that it was bedtime, so we could get a full nights rest to prepare ourselves for a day of sightseeing.

Day Two

As soon as everyone was ready to head out, we walked from the flat towards the Colosseum, stopping off first at Chiesa Basilica di San Clemente, a church that J and I visited in 2012 after reading about it in Lonely Planet Traveller magazine.

It is historic excavation sight, which has three distinct levels, home to the ruins of a Roman house and the original fourth century basilica. After exploring the depths of this lovely church, we were only a minute down via di San Giovanni in Laterano before we stopped again, this time at a small bakery, where we bought delicious baked pastries, with either spinach or bits of pancetta.

We eventually arrived at the awe-stopping sight of the Colosseum. We all stood across the road first taking photos before getting closer and walking around the front to find of course, a huge line-up. J and I then lead the search to find a representative who had the best rates for a tour, because that’s what we did in 2012 and we did get in fairly quickly, plus we got a tour of the Forum.

While they were doing their tour, J and I decided to go and find Largo di Torre Argentino, the site of the ancient Pompey’s Theatre, the ruins of an 18^th Century opera house, now turned cat sanctuary.

I remember back in 2009 going there on my Topdeck tour and my tour guide telling us that it was here where Julius Caesar was murdered and that the legend was due to his relationship with Cleopatra that was the reason why cats lived there.

Largo di Torre Argentino

After trying to spot all the kitties, we decided to retrace our 2012 tracks and try and find Al Duello and Caffé Sant’Eustachio, where of course J did lead the way to, with his extremely handy map reading skills*.

Then it was that awkward time of day when your travelling, you’re busting for the loo and in desperate need to find a public one… an extremely rare find, if you have ever been to Europe. If you spot a McDonalds, it is usually your best bet, but this one we found happened to be the BUSIEST McDonalds toilet EVER.

I’m only using caps to help exaggerate how busy it really was. I waited half-an hour to use the ladies. The only thing positive that came out of this experience (apart from being able to relieve my bladder) was being surrounded by only Italians and hundreds of them, and experiencing a normal time in the life of Italians.*

After such a long wait we were due to meet J’s parents and sister back at the Roman Forum. We all then walked back towards Via San Giovanni in Laterano and stopped off at one of the nearby streets to have some lunch. The food was good, the service and price is almost what I expect of places situated so close to tourist attractions.

Needless to say it had been thus far a long day and I was ready for a sit down before going out to dinner at Al Duello that night. But J lead us the long way round and for a little while I think he was lost, as we walked all the way past Circo Maximo to arrive back at the flat.

We rested, before we headed to Vicolo della Vaccarella, a short walk from Piazza Navona for dinner at Al Duello. We were greeted by a gorgeous, smiling lady, and I told her I had made a reservation for ‘Dunlop,’ she said then said there was no reservation, but then said not to worry and she and a waiter pulled two tables together and rearranged the table settings for the five of us. I love good service! And this is one of the reasons why this restaurant is one of my favourites in the world, not only is the food delicious, but friendliness of the staff is next-to-none.

Anyway, after going on about how we’d eaten the five-course degustation menu last time, J’s sister thought she would give four courses a try. Well she failed in style, I don’t even know how J and I did it, I think it took us good few hours.

I had three courses; the French onion soup (with an Italian twist), the Al Duello pasta and the chocolate fondant dessert – everything was delicious and I’ve already vowed to return again.

On leaving the restaurant, we were seen off by the waitress (the owners sister) who first greeted us, and she did the very ‘Italian’ thing and kissed me on the cheek, a good sign of friendship in my eyes.

Day Three

J had caught everyone’s cold, and thank god for his Mum and giving him all these drugs, he seemed to be a bit better this morning. But we decided to sleep in anyway, while his parents and sister went to do a tour of the Vatican Museum.

When we eventually left the flat we headed to the Bocca della Verità – a site at a church, made famous by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck when they place their hands in the ‘mouth of truth,’ in the scene from Roman Holiday. It was a new place for us that we thought we could explore.

We walked there from the flat, passing Circo Massimo on the way, and J even gave directions to a lady and her daughter*. When we arrived, there was a huge queue to get in, but it passed reasonably quickly. We eventually got chatting to the couple behind us, who were also Australian and in Rome on their honeymoon, to pass the time. Once we were at the front of the queue, we gave a gold coin donation and asked the Australian couple if they could take our photo for us.

We then stuck our hands in the mouth of the Bocca della Verità…and they didn’t get cut off. 

J and I putting our hand in the mouth of the Bocca della Verita

Lucky we don’t tell lies I guess.

After we also gave a donation to go underneath the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Cosmedin and have a look at the ruins of an old chapel. After we crossed the bridge into Trastevere.

Where we wandered around the winding cobbled streets, losing ourselves in the gorgeous surroundings. We stopped for lunch at a bakery, J had mushroom pizza bread and I had spinach and ricotta ravioli.

Then we walked along the winding cobbled street we were on and found a gelaterie; I had a hazelnut chocolate scoop and J had Crema di Catalana.

We continued on our merry way, walking past flats, shops and the daily life that surrounded us, and then we had to find a bathroom, so we stopped to have an espresso at this franchise café that we’d seen before somewhere.

The symbol of busy Italian streets; the Vespa

The view along the River Tiber

We then walked along the Tiber River, leaving the magic and peaclefulness of Trastevere behind us and headed towards the Vatican City.

We waited under the columns, that guarded us from the rain, when it stopped and the sun had disappeared, we took a few photos in front of St. Peters with the lights on. Then we walked to find J’s sister and his folks waiting for us at a nearby restaurant.

St. Peters Basilica shadowed by grey clouds

Once we arrived back at the flat, J and his sister made their way up to the flat and J’s parents and I headed to the nearest supermarket for ingredients for a picnic dinner; we bought salami, cheese, bread rolls and olives and arancini balls from a local pizza bar. I even got to test-drive my Italian again, this time I managed to stuff the words for orange and the rice balls.

We ate all this accompanied by wine, also bought from the supermarket.

Day Four

So today, it was J and my turn to lead the way. Firstly we caught the metro to Fontagna di Trevi, to throw our coins to make sure our future included another trip to Rome. J’s parents and sister loved it, and I really don’t think you could find someone that wouldn’t, especially because there was no scaffolding attached like there was in 2012. We threw our coins in and hoped for the best.

The Trevi Fountain: Not under renovation 

Then we wandered through the cobble stone covered laneways to find San Crispino, on Via della Panetteria, for some gelati. 

The street where San Crispino lives

Then we were off to the Spanish Steps, climbed the many stairs and trying to ignore as many men as we could who were trying to flog us roses, among other things. And what a great view it was. When we were there in 2012, J and I didn’t walk up, due to how overflowing it was with tourists. The last time I saw that view was when I was there in 2009 with Topdeck.

On top of the Spanish Steps

We then walked to Piazza Navona, where it was full of people all trying to take photos of la Fontagna dei Quattro Fiumi, though I stood to admire the intricate fountain, my eyes we scanning among the bustle for Tre Scalini, a café/gelaterie that sells its infamous tartufo nero, a deliciously large ball of chocolate gelato, with chunks of chocolate chip, served with cream and with a glazed-cherry in the centre. One of the most disgustingly over-indulgent things I’ve eaten and somehow I’ve managed to eat two in my short lifetime.

K and I overindulging 

After boasting about the ‘best’ coffee in Rome, we finally took J’s parents to Caffé Sant’Eustachio for an espresso. And this time J and I weren’t here in the morning or as part of a tour group, again it was every man or woman for themselves. And I was brave enough to order in Italian, among the many Italians on their coffee break. It reminded me of that scene in the movie version of Eat Love Pray, where Julia Roberts finds it daunting ordering a coffee. It was insane.

We then walked towards the Pantheon, though it felt like we were going on a huge detour, considering they look so close together on the map*. We ended up stopping at a small bakery for flat bread and pastries, where they were nice enough to give us tasters.

After a much-needed sit down in the church pews at the Pantheon, we did some more walking, but this time with the intention of reaching the flat, we were stuffed.

Though we did make a minor detour to have a close-up look at the Vittorio Emanuele memorial and then it was back to the flat.

We were so tired all of us from the long day of walking that we decided to eat dinner close to home again, but this time at La Spaccio for dinner – just around the corner from Viale Carlo Felice – a laid back franchise, where the food was tasty and cheap. It even had some Italian craft beers on the menu.

It was a nice relaxing night for our last night in Rome, and the last time (well until September this year) we’ll see J’s parents and sister.

Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano down the street from where we were staying

Day Five

Well we said our ‘see-ya laters’ to J’s parents and sister, since it would be another eight months till we see them again and then caught the metro to Termini Stazione; where we just made it in time to catch the shuttle bus to Fiumincino Airport.

On the way, possibly the most-scariest thing almost happened – the bus almost broke down – it started shuddering and the bus driver had to stop and wait about five minutes while he kept trying to re-start the engine. Especially scary because we didn’t have travel insurance, we definitely did not want to miss our flight to Copenhagen.

And then of course our flight was possibly the shittest we’ve had so far (*touch wood*), it was quite rough due to wind on the last hour of the flight, scaring the s**t out of me.

We caught the metro into the centre of Copenhagen where it was about a ten-minute walk to Generator Hostel where we were staying.

Arriving there at around 1:45pm. We then went for a walk around town, and had a delicious sandwhich in a café nearby, before continuing on our walk and admiring all the beautifully merchandised window displays of the shops…it was truly cool and how I imagined Scandinavia to be.

We eventually headed back to the hostel where we ate Danish meatballs for dinner and washed it down with a pint of Tuborg Classic.

Just a funny photo of Italian parking skills you can see all the time in Rome

*I don’t identify as Italian, but sometimes I like to imagine that I am.

*My favourite pizza that I've ever tasted was at the Barcelona food markets in 2012. 

*He can read a map, but that was an over exaggeration of his skills.

*Obviously that is not the recommended way of experiencing Rome like a local.

*Obviously he is good with directions, just sometimes he likes to rub it my face.

*A classic example of when J thinks he is reading a map properly, but actually he gets the directions so very wrong.

Part two soon to follow...stay tuned x