Hearing about our upcoming vacation to the capital of Denmark, my friend in Taipei asked me, "You're going where? What's in Copenhagen?" Let me tell you!
First of all, the Danes are doing so many things right! Out of 178 countries, Denmark rated #1 on the Global Satisfaction Life Index. Such a rating involves citizens' happiness, along with health, education, and economic development. However, that worldwide award is a "double-edge sword". Such a rating makes everyone flock to an area, overcrowding it. I predict that the rating will encourage the beleaguered Danish Immigration officials to tighten their admittance policies.
The kingdom ranks 5th in the Global Peace Index.
It also ranks 5th in the Legatum Prosperity Index, which calculates economics, business environment, governance, education, health, safety, personal freedom, environment, and social capital.
For a second opinion, the OECD Better Life Index uses similar guidelines and awarded Denmark as #3 out of 38.
The global travel website, Lonely Planet, chose Copenhagen as the #1 city in the world to visit in 2019. (Often ahead of the curve, Lewis and I planned our trip in 2018, before that report was published).
Copenhagen is the 8th-best sport city in the world.
Danes are friendly and accept various creeds and cultures.
Both WorldPride AND EuroGames are set to take place in Copenhagen in 2021! Such an achievement seems unavoidable, since the city is famously gay-friendly with a long-standing reputation for openness, tolerance, and "open door" policies at its LGBT clubs.
LGBT Denmark was founded in 1948. In 2009, same-sex couples could adopt children. In 2017, Denmark was the first country that no longer perceived being transgender as a mental illness. That same year, Copenhagen celebrated the world's oldest gay bar, Centralhjornet, opened in 1917.
Condé Nast rated Copenhagen's airport as the 7th best international airport in the world, and it also won Best Security Processing in the world by the Skytrax Survey. It won "The Most Efficient Airport in Europe" for 10 years in a row! In 2018, it was named The Best City in Europe for Clean Transport.
Denmark’s capital has long been synonymous with design, sustainability, fashion, and innovation.
(Seen above, the building complex has green-spaces. Seen below, a parking garage has playgrounds on the roof).
e.g.: read the caption below!
As you might know, Michelin Guide's "Best Restaurant in the World" for 2019 is Noma in Copenhagen. Last year, Copenhagen was awarded 19 Michelin stars!
Not surprisingly, the entire city only has 6 McDonald's... while Manhattan has 55.
*Read more about McDonald's here:
Just like Japan, their Seven-Eleven locations are much cleaner/tidier than the garbage-like ones in America.
Copenhageners crave farm-to-table, organic, small-batch, locally-sourced ingredients.
Timeless recipes are finessed with creativity. Producers go to great lengths to lower their "carbon footprint", abide by organic processes (including earth-worms, compost, and honeybees), and doing things manually.
With an ancient heritage from the Vikings, Danes can refer to themselves as Nordic--a.k.a. Norse--(which includes Finland, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Northern Sami, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark), and Scandinavian (which includes the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark).
Juxtaposed with modernity, the city preserves architecture dating back to the Medieval Period.
With a low-rise skyline, proper pace, and work/life balance, the city avoids the high-stress of most capitals.
Copenhagen is renown for being cozy, which we like.
Similar to Asian "Zen moments" (which they have),
Danes cherish "hygge". It is woven into the fabric of their daily life.
As a capital of design, the city reclaims older structures for continued use in new ways.
Yet, it also propels new development and harmoniously blends architectural innovation.
Look at these attractive sidewalk cafes and outdoor eateries:
Check out the creative art installations all around the city:
North of the city, closer to Deer Park, are truly magnificent wooden sculptures titled Six Forgotten Giants. Such whimsy!
The event (named below) includes nights of free-access to the city's (participating) buildings for art-themed events!
The city has an abundance of color...
In winter, color flourishes during the Light Festival...
Most capitals do not have beaches or seashores, but Copenhagen has both. The oceanside city also has canals (which they copied from Amsterdam), a harbor, and five lakes.
They have castles.
The Kingdom of Denmark loves its monarch and her family. During WWII, her grandfather, the King, famously rode his horse through Nazi-occupied Denmark without bodyguards because "all of Denmark" was his bodyguard. It was a great morale booster!
Queen Margrethe's recently-deceased husband expressed more affection than the British royals dare to show.
The oldest reigning royal family in Europe, they continue going strong. It must be the strong genetics from the Vikings. Such Norsemen settled in Normandy, France, and those were the Normans led by William the Conquerer who subjugated England in 1066. The Danish royal dynasty is from the House of Oldenburg, with a history going back to King Gorm the Old in the 900s!
The cute princes from Euro-royalty's first mixed-race Asian/Caucasian marriage don't do any harm, either.
Their father remarried, and the sons love both mothers.
Prince Nikolai added his face to fashion, which is popular.
The Danes have a notable "Coffee Culture".
Regnbuepladsen (Rainbow Square), is proudly in front of the City Hall. In 2014, the government voted to erect a permanent Pride Flag. Can you imagine such a thing happening in Washington D.C. or Manhattan's City Hall?
Healthcare in Denmark is universal and high-class. Every citizen is covered, and patient satisfaction is much higher than in profit-driven America. Americans pay weekly healthcare fees but only get 3 check-ups for free, per year, and then dodge exorbitant costs or deductibles for anything extra.
Denmark's average income is $43,000, and 45% goes to taxes--which actually GIVES BACK to the taxpayers via excellent infrastructure, quality of life, and governance. Like much of Europe, Danes smartly enjoy a "Life/Work Balance". Employees get 5 weeks of paid vacation, plus nine paid holidays (compared to 6 paid holidays and only 2 weeks vacation in America)! Feriefridage is referred to as the sixth week of vacation--arranged by many companies.
New Yorkers lose nearly 50% of their paychecks to taxes/fees, but we get crap! Looking at my friend's bi-weekly paycheck of $2,142, she only got $1,206 because the rest was taken for American taxes and healthcare... yet she lives in NYC with a crumbling infrastructure.
See my blog post about it here: https://halfwindsorfullthrottle.blogspot.com/2018/12/expolsions.html
Lewis and I would rather pay European taxes for their way of life. It seems much fairer and less corruptly greedy. European governments clearly strive to provide a good quality of life to their paying citizens... as it should be.
While America cheaply keeps its outdated power supplies and pays unions a lot to do never-ending feeble infrastructure repairs, Denmark built "green" power plants and erected several wind turbine farms.
Mindful that the new "green" power plant would be a part of the skyline and cityscape, they engineered it to double as a year-round recreational facility (instead of a blemish, like most power plants are)!
Its properly-run Metro makes New York City's MTA a laughingstock. Their fully-automated system is better than NYC's manually-operated ones--full of indecipherable announcements, shiftless, slowness, and errors. Their subways arrive on time EVERY FOUR MINUTES and they are CLEAN! Forward-looking views are enjoyed because their underground tunnels are immaculately maintained.
Though the decades, they reinvested to keep stations modern, skylit, and handicap accessible... as a city should do.
To help their growing population, they did something unheard of in American cities: they actually BUILT an entire new subway line! (Applause!) It took NYC's MTA one hundred years to make a three-stop extension on its overburdened 2nd-Avenue line (and the tracks still don't connect to the rest of upper Manhattan: they just stop). In less than 10 years, Copenhagen hired an Italian company to burrow TWO new tunnels for the length of a whole new line (seen in red)! It connects to the suburban trains. Passengers complete the loop in 24 minutes.
Vastly better than American transit, they ASKED each community for input on the appearance/desires of the newly-built stations (since they are part of the tax-paid landscape).
In stark contrast, uncaring/overpaid NYC politicians left Brooklyn and Queens counties unconnected by subways--despite their quadrupling populations--forcing people to take 1.5 hour rides to cross a 10-minute distance. No wonder Copenhagen's population is much happier.
Their commuter and intercity trains--which go either 75 or 120 miles-per-hour--and stations are as clean as Japan's and Amsterdam's. They're bicycle-friendly, too.
Unlike the United States, they have speed trains to connect affordably to the rest of Europe quickly. A train to Hamburg, Germany takes 6 hours and costs only 32 Euros. Denmark also built a new bridge/tunnel to Malmö, Sweden, making it a mere 30-minute trip!
Trains, subways, ferries, taxis, and buses are all bicycle-friendly. Like at their museums/attractions, children under the age of 9 go for free. (Such an open-handed deal). Danes are proud that reliable service is always provided by taxis, which are part of the public transportation system.
Serving as a model for the globe, Copenhagen's bike-riding culture is supported by the government in dramatic ways. Firstly, they have Traffic School for children, to ensure capable drivers for the future--and less traffic accidents.
They also have dedicated bike lanes--which are regularly swept and plowed.
They built pedestrian & bike-only bridges.
They have bike-friendly staircases...
bike parking areas...
foot rests...
and bike traffic signals.
Each day, Cycle Counters encourage bikers by showing how many people use the system and how they're contributing to becoming an "emission free" society.
Due to that level of support, 60% of Copenhageners use bikes for their commutes! That is unbelievably great! Their philosophy of Cycle Chic is very popular, and cycling keeps you looking good.
Copenhagen's City Bike program, called Bycyklen, is only $10 per month--giving all rides under 30-minutes for free. Their bikes come equipped with headlights, taillights, baskets, and weatherproof touch-screens for multi-language navigation! So amazing!
Manhattan's Citibike (by Citibank) program costs $50 more and lacks the touch-screen navigation.
In addition to its clean beaches,
... it has clean water and several public swimming areas. CNN awarded Copenhagen as the world's best city to swim in. Imagine being able to leave work, go for a swim (or dip your toes in the water), then head to an outdoor restaurant, before going home!
Modeled after Amsterdam, its canals great for, kayaking, boating, and affordable rentals of both!
This year, the United Kingdom's M&IT magazine named Copenhagen as the world's most runnable city.
Their parks and park-like cemetaries are amazing: full of flowerbeds, artwork, outdoor events, and picnics.
As a fun twist of Fate, Lewis and I are sojourning with two friends. Coincidentally, they planned a trip to Copenhagen on the same dates! We made our hotel reservations very early (for a better price). I steered our friends to the same hotel as us, and they revealed that it had been of their top-three choices, too! It was meant to be!
Lewis and I pored over online resources to discover well-rounded places to enjoy. The website for "Scandinavia Standard" lets you see the latest food, fashion, technology, and developments in each nation and kingdom.
Our hotel staff has already been accommodating--equalling our enthusiasm of visiting their city--with travel tips and arrangements. 90% of the local business and restaurant websites are available in English. Emailed reservations were all promptly answered--including some causal slang words in English!
I noticed a Dutch chocolatier called Original Beans, which sells its product through a Danish chocolatier called Mark Hermann in Copenhagen. Per their website and videos, Original Beans goes "above and beyond" what an organic producer usually does. My email to Original Beans (headquartered in Amsterdam--which we will be in for my birthday in August) was promptly answered, recommending chocolate flavors to match my interests. My email to Mark Hermann was instantly electronically acknowledged, and a gracious answer came the next day. They carry 4 of the Original Beans flavors. Via email, I easily coordinated with the hotel manager to arrange delivery of those chocolates, so I could surprise Lewis during our first night! I'm such a sweet guy. Then, he can get me different flavors in Amsterdam!
Ciao for now!
*To see our amazing time in Amsterdam, go here:
